Meet our Costume Designer

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:47:54 +0000

We are honored (and lucky) to have the incredibly talented, Arthur Aleksander, as the costumer designer for By The Soles of Our Feet. Mr. Aleksander is an up and coming designer finishing his studies at Otis College of Art and Design. His award-winning work was featured at the LACMA Summer 2010 Art Walk where he conceptualized the work of local artist Gary Baseman in the form of party dresses.

We recently sat down with Mr. Aleksander to find out more about him and how he is approaching the costuming for the film.

How did you manage costuming a story that develops across several environmental extremes and movie genres while still keeping a consistent “thread” in the designs?
Well, there were several meetings with the producers and director of the film to discuss the characters’ identities, which were integral to the translation of how the clothes would evolve on-screen. I wanted there to be a direct correlation between who the characters are as a living human being and who they are destined to become. It was discussed that these stripes were to be the unifying design detail that figuratively tied Bucco and Pepe together and makes appearances in the costumes throughout the film’s entirety. As the film progresses you see not only the evolution of the characters but also of the stripes.

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Would you say the costumes are an extension of the character’s identities?
They most definitely are. You know, when you look at the costumes and then compare it to the characters, they really are an extension of their identities. I’ve had the pleasure of reading the script in its entirety, so I know what happens to the characters as they progress and change (for better or for worse), and I think the audience will (hopefully) see that and maybe appreciate the little details.

So yeah, the costumes, I think, help bring the characters to life. On one hand we have Pepe, one of the main characters, who’s this uptight, righteous stick-in-the-mud who’s own noble creed restricts him from living life outside of his “code of conduct.” So I wanted to translate that in his clothes. In some costumes I actually purposefully made things fit tighter like in the arms to restrict his movements, some pants were made to hinder fluid walking; I just wanted the actor, Andrew, to feel the discomfort and misery of Pepe.

And then on the other hand we have Pepe’s loyal sidekick, Bucco, who’s the complete opposite of his master. Bucco was a wild card for me. He’s this free-for-all, free-spirited, fun loving pig-like character who loves wearing bright, obnoxious colours and is kind of all over the place. It was a bit of a challenge to design for him because his character was out of my comfort zone of clean, sleek design.

He’s messy and dirty, and a commoner, and his clothes had to reflect that. His shirts would be dirtied and soiled with grease stains, dirt, maybe blood from who knows where, and he’d always have some form of stripe plastered on his clothes.

But their clothes don’t remain stagnant, because the characters have to change. As the film progresses, we see that Pepe gets “stripped” down to almost nothing and Bucco gets more “tailored.” I can’t say much more than that, but I can say that it’ll be exciting to see it transform on-screen.

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What are some the perks and challenges you’ve encountered designing for a motion picture?
Nothing is worth doing if it doesn’t involve risks or challenges, and then once accomplished, you have nothing to do but reap the benefits of its worthwhileness. And designing for a motion picture has provided me with both. You kind of have to jump some cliffs to make something work, especially when fighting to meet deadlines and ensuring things fit properly or look right for the camera or designing something that you normally wouldn’t design.

The hardest part for me was sourcing or finding the right fabrics and stripes, because you have to be careful of colours reading well or poorly on camera or ensure that the stripes are super skinny so that they create a dizzying moire effect. It’s been a phenomenal experience that I’m glad and excited to be a part of. It takes a lot of time and research, though, so that requires me to really know what it is that I’m doing and going to do or looking for.

I also find that the process in designing for a film is a lot similar to designing for the mass market in that I have to create a “look”–a look that’s believable and sellable, if you will, on screen so that the audience will believe that the characters are who they say they are or are portrayed as they should be. You know, clothes make the man, and this film’s creators most certainly believe that.

What is your usual design aesthetic? Has it found its way into any of the designs for the film?
Usually, I have a very minimal approach at designing. My emphasis is more on drape and fit than glitz and glamour. That’s not to say that I don’t ever do glitz and glamour, I just prefer understated beauty. Society today believes in excess everything, I don’t, and I don’t want to be excessive. For me, when people are excessive in their mannerisms and their clothing and belongings, I always feel that they’re trying to compensate for something. There’s nothing more attractive to me that clean lines.

This aesthetic has kind of weaved its way into the designs for the film, I guess. It’s always difficult to part with your own ideas and philosophies, but hopefully it translates well.

What “Chapter” in the film are you looking most forward to and why?
I’m really, really excited for the Romantic Comedy and Drama chapters. Maybe it’s because they’re some of the only scenes that involve this heavy dosage of colours, which is weird because I normally don’t design with colours. But I think these chapters will be so viscerally visual.

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What’s your favorite film of all time?
That’s a good question. I honestly don’t think I can pin down a movie that’s my all time favorite. My moods change so often and my likes and dislikes are in constant flux that I never really know what my favorite anything is. But if I had to choose my favorite movie of all time at this moment, it’s got to be Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, since that was the last Miyazaki film that I re-watched recently.

I love, I mean I absolutely love, Miyazaki films. They’re always so multi-faceted and well-layered with themes and myths of fancy and everything. It’s like watching dreams being projected through animation. They’re beautiful.

What’s your favorite fabric of all time?
It has to be wool. It’s a very versatile fabric and succumbs so nicely and beautifully to steam. It just looks beautiful in any form that it takes. A person couldn’t look any better if they wore the right tailored suit. It’s today’s body armour. When a man or woman puts on a nicely cut wool suit you just can’t help but feel powerful and beautiful or handsome at the same time. There’s this connotation to success, I guess, with wool, especially fine wools. It’s also a natural fiber, so no need to worry about it taking millions of years to decompose!

Production – By the Soles of Our Feet

Meet our Costume Designer