A closer look at the clothing and Designers who have shaken us to our core.

I have been a fan of the genre for as long as I can remember. Starting with these films from a young age I was terrified, yet intrigued. I found myself, 8 years old in Blockbuster being drawn to the shelves of the horror section, turning over the boxes and staring at the images wondering what these films were about. I remember being so drawn to The Exorcist seeing young Reagan’s face in her demonic stare and knowing she was no older then me. Needless to say when I finally watched the film a few years later I couldn’t sleep, fearing she’d spider crawl across my doorway in the dark. An avid lover and devotee to Halloween, the spooky and the haunted was taking a larger hold on me the older I got. After studying theatre and costume design in undergrad and postgraduate education, the history of clothing sparked another light. Just how those VHS boxes called to me, so to did the intricacies of clothing history and garment making. How clothing can deeply define us on levels that we may not even be aware of when we get dressed in the morning. So after Halloween and horror saved my life and fashion history became my vocation, my next question was how to blend these worlds. How does the part of me that wears vintage 40’s attire and pin curls her hair also thrive in the spooky and the occult. Two worlds that I loved, that seemed to have nothing in common. It was like your best friend from growing up meeting your best friend from your job, biting your nails and hoping they don’t start one upping each other to claim you as solely theirs. Then it occurred to me, just how I sit with a piece to breakdown characters in the work I design, why couldn’t I do that for the movies I loved? Sure, brilliant Costume Designers already put the flag in the soil on the ideas, but using their visions and their descriptions I wanted to break this down further and bring this to more people. What I have found is that if a play or a film isn’t “period” often times the Costume Designers go unnoticed, but even some elaborate costumes get displayed without any footnote to the person who’s vision it was. I wanted to bring my peers to the forefront and break down the mind of a Costume Designer. We work hard and our work does go unnoticed, which is the goal right? To seamlessly feel like you are watching the natural way with which these characters present their outer selves to the world. My goal is to bring to you, in the most thorough way I know how, how clothing is used to devise characters, how the history of a garment impacts the story, and the endless hours of work these designers do makes what they do seem so effortless. I have been working professionally as a designer for just about four years now, and while my time in the field is still green, the way I’ve been challenged to critically think and approach stories has completely changed how I watch movies, trust me ask any artist you can’t ever watch anything passively because you know the devises, a blessing and a curse. I promise to teach and to hopefully change the way you watch horror. I also promise that I am still learning myself, and will be using this to really see the researching muscles I’ve worked out over the years. So enjoy this Cabinet of Curiosities I will be bringing you, and enjoy watching the horror fabric unravel in the hopes that you too will be Hanging by a Thread.