What does a costume attendant do?

What is a Costume Attendant?

Are you creative and artistic? Do you have a flare for design and a love of the performing arts?

Costume attendants work in the fashion, textile, and theatre world organizing costumes for the performing arts. In shows that have multiple, extravagant costume changes, costume attendants are responsible for the flawless costume changes that performers make during the length of the stage show.

Costume attendants are extremely organized workers with strong attention to detail and a love of making the stage come to life with fantastic, detailed costumes, and do not mind putting in long hours to do their jobs.

What does a Costume Attendant do?

Costume attendants work with producers, directors and costume designers to establish the details of costuming for each individual production.

Finding the right costumes could require reading the script and doing research about a specific time period to fully achieve the desired look. This could involve studying old books, photographs, and period clothing for details that must be carried over into the costuming.

The costume attendants that work directly under a costume designer often help to make, alter, and repair costumes for the shows, or send the costumes to a seamstress or tailor in time to be ready for the performances. For pieces that cannot be made on site, costume attendants will travel to the appropriate shops to rent or buy costume pieces required for the performance.

Costume attendants hire cast dressers to help with their many responsibilities. They make sure that costumes have all of their necessary pieces to make them authentic to the time period they represent, as well as ensure the costumes look as fabulous on stage as they do on the sewing table, with enough time to make changes if necessary.

Other duties of costume attendants are to create organized spreadsheets that detail dressing and costume lists and checks, assign lockers and dressing rooms to performers, and see that all costumes are in the dressing rooms before show time.

During show times, costume attendants carefully arrange all costumes in the order they will be worn to facilitate fast, flawless costume changes. They hand out costumes and props to each performer, and keep detailed records that state where wardrobe pieces are. They must also assist performers in putting the costumes on properly. When the production is over, they are responsible for returning the wardrobe pieces to the rental facilities or storage.

What is the workplace of a Costume Attendant like?

Costume attendants typically work with performing arts companies. They work backstage, ensuring every aspect of costuming is taken care of before a performance begins. They wait in the wings to make sure costumes are ready for changes during the show, and they travel to costume shops and storage to return costumes to their appropriate place after the show is complete.

Costume attendants work very long hours on days when shows are performed, and more typical work hours in the weeks leading up to performances.