An Evening With Deborah Landis

The other week I got the chance to go to a talk by Deborah Landis at Sheffield Hallam Uni in which she spoke about her recent V&A Hollywood Costume exhibition, but primarily the role of a costume designer for films. While I'd loved the exhibition at the V&A I was worried about feeling a bit out of place at the talk, as I know next to nothing about costume design, but she's one of the best speakers that I've ever been able to listen to. Her enthusiasm for film is incredible and she has a great sense of humour.  I loved the talk as she spent most of it explaining the importance of getting the audience to be a stakeholder in the film and how the best costumes are often the ones that you don't notice as you're immersed in their world so much, rather than talking about the practicalities of design. Costume design is about creating unique individuals each time, but it's also part of making the story come to life. It was a wonderful to hear how she seems to place prominence on helping to create a totally engaging film.

Often during the talk I was surprised though, in particular that the costume designer has to consider the set as well as the costumes so that the two don't clash and that the exhibition took 5 years to curate. Which was understandable as Landis went on to explain that in the Golden Age of cinema the costumes weren't labelled and were handed down to actors, from the leading man in one film, to a supporting actor in another, to then maybe an extra etc, making them hard to locate. In total 130 costumes from 63 lenders were in the exhibition.

The talk was faultless and I enjoyed every minute, that is until the film alarm went off and we all had to exit the building which cut the talk short. However, this meant that I got to meet Deborah Landis outside of the hall and get a photo! (She was lovely and stood outside in the cold signing autographs and having photos with everyone.)

Also, as I found out with Lucy only half way through the talk, Deborah Landis' husband, John Landis the film director, was sat in the audience - in the row behind us! He stood kindly outside in the cold as well and signed an autograph for me!

The talk emphasised to me how important costume design is to a film maker and how unimportant it should be to the audience watching the film. Immersing the audience by creating individuals and worlds on screen is what is key to making incredible films. It helped me to see how costumes should work in films successfully.

Altogether, this was a pretty great day for me.