Love it or entirely indifferent to it, clothing is still the widely practiced human norm that we all adhere to. Walking around naked, while not impossible, may get someone labelled a “kook”. Also, “lunatic”. Also, “not to be trusted” and “should be institutionalized”.
Like the majority of the people in the industry, our everyday clothing here at ECG is as casual as we can get away with. Our clothes are really there to protect us from the sun on outdoor shoots and keep arbitrary pieces of gaff from disappearing. Similarly, we wear our closed-toed beat up sneakers and boots to protect our feet from c-stand legs and stray nails from set builds. Look no further than ECG’s-own CSI certified colorist, Jenn, for the best argument against wearing dresses on set, and what to wear instead.
So what’s the big deal then?
So day to day, we’re wearing the classic comfy jeans and t-shirts. And, on the lucky days we work on green screen sets, chroma green gaff tape to accessorize. But that’s not to say film folks don’t get that clothing really matters sometimes. In an industry driven by aesthetics, clothes can relay anything we want about a character. One glance at Annie Hall’s quirky get up and the audience knows this woman is to be fallen in love with. We have no choice, or so her endearing oversized men’s ties and brightly colored sundresses tell us.
In fact there are entire armies of people in the industry who just love the stuff and know exactly how to use clothing to push the story along. These people make up the wonderful world of the wardrobe department.
It can’t be that hard…
It may be tempting to think anyone can dress an actor. After all, everyone gets up in the morning and dresses themselves, right? But what if you need to dress a 17th century English Princess? Or a punk rock star from the year 1969? What if you have a very small budget to create a few historically accurate kimonos for a movie about Samurai’s? Or, what if you’re given thousands of dollars and 236 extras to dress in suits, dresses and fancy hats to recreate a bustling New York City street from 1954?
These are monumental tasks that take an entire department of extremely talented directors, researchers, craftsmen, tailors, designers and assistants to pull off. Wardrobe is entirely collaborative with and dependent upon every other film department. In particular, wardrobe needs to coordinate with the rest of the art department to make sure the clothing and costume choices fit the overall aesthetic theme of the entire production. We can’t have flashy shirts clashing with flashy wallpaper on set now, can we?
Wardrobe at ECG
At ECG, our in-house wardrobe team handles our ever growing stores of clothing and accessories. We’ve dressed for nearly every era, from medieval knights to music moguls in the year 2050. And, if we don’t have what you need in our hoard of clothing and accessories we’ve gathered through years and years of shoots, we’ve also done the hard work already and fostered relationships with the best wardrobe supervisors all over the country. We’re ready to create the perfect wardrobe for whatever you have in mind. Contact us and let’s get started!