Janis Martin cherishes a memory from the play 42nd Street at the Music
Theater in Wichita, Kansas.
"The production had quite a large budget and somewhere around 250 complete
costumes," says the costume designer and professor. "My parents drove down
from Minnesota. [It was] the first time they had ever seen my work.
"During intermission, my father was standing in line in the men's
room and the gentleman in front of him was going on about the 'marvelous
costumes.' My father listened for quite some time and when the gentleman
turned to include him in the conversation, he smiled and proudly stated that
his daughter was the designer."
Martin is responsible for classroom instruction in costume design, costume
instruction, stage make-up and theater appreciation at Marshall University
in West Virginia. She's also developing a course in integrated arts,
and spends about seven hours a week in formal classroom training and 20 hours
a week in a laboratory.
"I enjoy the lab experience because I love watching the students work hands-on,
solving problems in a creative fashion," says Martin.
Her decision to become a costume designer came as a college student. "I
had quite a dilemma as I was trying to discover what I wanted to be when I
grew up," Martin recalls. "I loved art and would draw and paint in my spare
time. I learned to sew at 13, and competed with my garment construction in
local fairs.
"As an undergraduate, I was working toward a degree in graphic arts, a
separate degree in theater, and employed at a fabric store. One day it clicked
that I didn't have to give up any of my interests. Instead I could combine
them all as a costume designer."
"The field of theater, film and museum costuming is like an aphrodisiac
to those of us who live in it and keep doing it -- difficult as it may be,"
says Robert Doyle, a costume designer and teacher. "Many of us develop other
marketable skills, like teaching, fine arts and the like to sustain us between
the costume design jobs."
Doyle's career includes extensive training in New York City, Italy,
Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden and England, as well as costume
design, teaching and historical restoration.
About 20 years ago, Doyle was commissioned to research and re-create the
18th century for a restoration of the Fortress of Louisbourg.
During the four-year project, he designed the reproduction clothing for
the civilian and military animation program, established the workrooms, trained
the staff and taught historic domestic reproduction techniques.
"Using specimens and fragments of costumes found at the dig site," Doyle
explains, "I was able to teach the staff a great deal about the domestic details
surrounding 18th-century colonial life. We wove the fabrics for these initial
historic samples, based on the site findings."
Penny Dunlap Ladnier is a Virginia-based designer, teacher and historical
researcher with a simple motto: "If it's out there, I'll find it."
She is using her love of costumes to research and write a book on four main
areas of costume history. The book will be titled Color Names Throughout the
Centuries.
Dunlap Ladnier has designed clothing at colleges in New Mexico and Mississippi,
and more recently for three period films in the Richmond, Virginia, area.
She also researches costume history for authors and other designers, and designs
and markets websites for businesses in the costume industry.
Martin remembers a production of The Music Man for the Santa Barbara Civic
Light Opera. She had driven to Los Angeles to pick up some rental costumes
and trim at a fabric store. While she was in the store, her car was broken
into and $9,000 worth of period costumes was stolen.
"The ironic thing was that the matching hats were in a very large box blocking
access to the costumes and had to be removed in order to get the costumes
out of the car," Martin recalls.
"The thieves did this, took the costumes and then returned the hats to
the car. They weren't theater folks or they'd understand the importance
of accessories in completing the look."