Costume Design

The goal of the MFA Program in Costume Design is to develop professional artists for the next generation. Ours is not a program with a single-minded approach. Practical professional training is designed to expose students to all theatre-related performance and entertainment fields including stage, musical theatre, opera, film, dance, television, theme park, and special event design. UCI’s close proximity to Los Angeles provides a vast choice of costume materials, supplies, rental houses, and research venues as well as career connections for the future.

The program prepares graduates for employment as professional artists by emphasizing the concept of costume design as a fine art. Areas of study include drama as literature and as a performed art, reflective and digital presentation, costume history, and technique studies in masks, millinery, and fabric modification among others. We strive to teach our students to see with “the eye of the mind” and use creative imagination to render passion into reality, bringing life to characters and stories with color and style as well as cultural and historical sensitivity. Only six students are admitted to the program, two each year, to provide them with individualized attention and support.

Classroom experiences cultivate intellect and imagination by exposing students to a wide variety of subjects and skills. The program includes professional guest artists for seminars, lectures, and critiques.

Students engage in active learning through academic theatre productions as a costume designer. The mentor for each produced project assists students as they make the transition from conceptual work to practical application.

Each graduate student designs three to five fully supported production designs during their three-year residency in the program. Budgets, construction, humanistic studies, familiarity with contemporary practices, the “business” of professional costume design, and career transitioning are addressed in four ways:

• In the Classroom
• Through On-Site Visits
• Participation in The Television Academy’s
  Internship Program
• Attendance at Design Showcase West
  

Two award-winning, professional faculty members, Holly Poe Durbin and Shigeru Yaji, lead studies in the area of costume design. Both artists, with 25 years of professional work behind them, share their professional experiences with the students. Students witness the high level of expectation that these professionals hold for their work and learn to set their own high standards.

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