My son is considering costume design/tech. How’s the employment landscape looking? Would he be able to support himself? He is a little leery of following this path because of the low average income for theater grads. I think Payscale shows that costume designers cap out around $45,000 after 20 plus years. I’m sure there are those that make more but are there enough of those opportunities?
Is there crossover work between theater and film?
Thanks.
This is a great question. I don’t know the statistics, but anecdotally I know of several costume design grads who are working in their field. One of them, according to a former professor, is making more than he is. It is my understanding from my daughter’s interviews that there is some crossover between film and theatre, but I don’t know anyone personally who has done that. My D would like to work in both. The program she is starting in the fall appealed to her partially because they have an LA campus where students can spend a semester or a summer.
I also think that many costume designers (maybe the most successful?) work freelance or own their own businesses eventually, so maybe their higher salaries are not reflected at Payscale. Just a thought.
Salary aside, it seems to me that there are many many community and regional theatres that need costumers, so it seems that work would be plentiful, even if money is not.
I agree with @supergirlsmom. We also know several people who are making a good living in the field. One of them worked in live theatre before joining Game of Thrones, so there is a slightly different crossover. BFA programs are all about preparing you to work right out of undergrad. Every program we looked at expected you to work in the summers (and the professors have contacts to help make that happen, as they tend to be working professionals themselves). The schools also tend to keep the costume design & technology classes very small, so it’s not like they’re churning out way too many for the jobs that exist. Like supergirl, my D will be a freshman costume designer this fall, and I feel comfortable that she’ll find work. It’s very cool to feel that way about a kid heading into a career in the arts!
This is my daughter’s dream job. She is a junior in high school and we are looking at schools in NYC. Where is your daughter going?
Hi, @lisaol. She is going to Rutgers University in NJ, which is about 45 minutes by train from NYC. She didn’t want to be right in the city, but she did want access to it. Rutgers is a large state university with the Mason Gross School of the Arts tucked inside. MGSA is about 700 people (theatre, dance, film, visual arts) and has the feel of a small conservatory.
This will be an exciting year for your daughter. Are you on the East Coast? If so, maybe you can fit in some visits to schools in or near NYC this year. Watch their websites for open houses for theatre students especially. They were crucial to helping us form our overall understanding of BFAs and the specific programs. Also—read through some threads on this site. There are so many people to learn from! Best of luck!
@letterhead Thank you. I am familiar with Rutgers. I am from Long Island but I live in Florida. This past summer my daughter took a workshop in fashion at FIT and 2 workshops at SCAD. Can you recommend other schools? I always thought she had to take fashion design to be a costume designer but after reading these boards and now im realizing that is not the case. Do all schools require a portfolio?
Okay, gotcha. As far as I know, all of the schools with a BFA in Costume Design (or Design/Tech) do require a portfolio. The wonderful advantage studying costume rather than fashion design is that the major is within the Theatre department, so the kids are studying theatre, practicing script analysis, and learning to work with the other technicians (lights, sets, etc.) as well as with the actors.
It’s worth spending some time reading the threads, because advice on what schools to investigate is sprinkled throughout the discussions. Here’s one:
It can be useful to peek through the Musical Theatre Majors thread sometimes too.
Your daughter has a good amount of time to put together a portfolio if she wants to go the BFA route. Make sure she takes pictures throughout the process and keeps her sketches, plots, and lists, along with any artistic work she does for fun/outside theatre. Much better to have too much to pull from than too little!
Thank you so much!!
Here is another great older thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/623794-technical-theater-p1.html
@lisaol remember not to just look at schools with a BFA in costume design, as some programs will be listed as degrees in theater design/production/technology and then will have an emphasis in costume design. We missed a number of schools (though in stage management) not knowing that. Sometimes BFA admissions seems like it’s own world with no instruction manual.
We found this site to be helpful, though it does not look like it has been updated recently: http://costumesurvey.info/
Thank you! This is wonderful!