Storytelling through Costume Design
World Building questions for Costume and Character Designers
Blauw Films
The design of clothes and costumes in a fiction story is an important part of world building. In both films and novels, the costumes help to make your world both believable and unique.
This blog is about the creative process of designing costumes and clothes for characters. It doesn't matter if you want to make the clothes for actors, or only want to draw or write about them. The steps remain the same.
To help you along even further, Blauw Films offers multiple World Building tools. These do not only cover character and costume design! Use the Building Worlds Document to build every nook and cranny of your world! Here you can find questions about the map, the climate, politics, warfare, historical events, natural resources, and much more! If you're looking to write the narrative of your story, check out the Building Worlds Storytelling Worksheet.
Why Design the Clothes?
You don't need to be a fashionista to design clothes! Especially not when you're a writer for fantasy fiction.
Step one is to research real-world clothes and textiles. What type of cultures of fashion have inspired the worlds in your story? When you look at the real world, you can see that every culture develops their own unique way of dress. The same is true for cultures in fictional stories. Try to research how cultures create their clothes, how and why they are worn.
Step two is to think about your characters. Costume design is about the relationship between the character and their clothes. Think about the reasons why your character chose those clothes. Think about where they got the clothes from. Costumes also visualise a characters' archetype, motivation and can even foreshadow hidden quirks. The choices they make in their clothes to reveal something about their personality.
To make this research very easy, you can ask yourself simple world building questions!
World Building Questions
Think about world building from big to small. Ask the general questions first, to paint a clear picture of the rules in your world.
- The Genre and Mood of your world. Establishing the genre and mood first will help to make decisions that fit the theme of the story.
- The Size of your world. How expansive is your world? Do you need to design different planets, continents, or only cities?
- The History of the world. How did your world come to be? Try to understand how it evolved, to what it is in your story.
- The different Areas or Cultures. Throughout the history of the world, how did cultures, cities or areas develop? Discover the relationship between them.
- The Rules of each Culture. Look at each culture in your world. What are the building blocks that make up this culture? What makes it a recognisable and unique culture?
- The Characters in the world. Describe the different characters that make up this world. Where do they live, how have they lived and what purpose do they serve in your story?
The Personality and Journey of the charactersLook at the characters on a personal level. What are they like? What is their personality, their personal taste, their skills, quirks and ambitions? How will this character evolve through your story?
Costume Design Questions
We've got the basics of World Building out of the way! Let's take a closer look at questions about the costumes. Let's look at this world from a bird's perspective first. You can ask yourself the same questions per planet, continent or city, if that's important to you.
Nature
- What is the climate of this world like?
- What is this society's relationship with nature?
- Can natural materials be obtained for clothes?
- Are characters outside often?
- Is there specialised gear for travel?
Politics and Religion
- Is there a central culture or religion?
- Are different cultures or religions mixing together?
- How do religion and politics relate to each other?
- How is religion tied to dress?
- Are there distinct ranks between people?
- How are these ranks visually distinct from one other?
- Are there laws in place that dictate what to wear?
- Who enforces these laws?
- How are these ranks determined, or how did they form?
- What is the government like, if there is any at all?
Culture, Style and Taste
- What fashionable things are idealised in this world?
- Is a fashionable lifestyle achievable for every rank?
- What is considered appropriate or inappropriate dress?
- Does fashion have ties to our reality or is it something completely new?
- Does this society value fashion, or is functionality more important?
- What other types of ‘fashionable’ items exist in this world? (furniture, architecture)
- What colours are considered to look good together?
- Which types of accessories are common?
- Are weapons standard part of dress?
- What other gadgets / tools could be a standard part of dress?
- Do colours or patterns have symbolic meanings?
Commerce
- What is the level of innovation this society has?
- How is access to resources distributed between people?
- How is this society connected to other parts of the world?
- Where can one buy garments or raw materials?
- Are the raw materials imported, grown or lab-grown?
As you answer these questions, you're probably imagining what the clothes look like. Try to sketch them, or find references. Or just describe them with as much detail as you can!
Try to relate the answers to the genre and mood of the movie. This will help to develop the emotion or association the costumes should evoke. What shapes, textures or colours represent the worlds and their people?
Character Design Questions
With all these world building questions answered, close your eyes and see societies take shape! Now it's time to look at your characters. Who are they?
Heritage
- Where does this character's family come from?
- What has the relationship between family members been like?
- What have been defining moments in the family story?
Character Journey
- Where was this character born?
- What is this character's culture like?
- Are they in touch with their culture?
- What is their relationship with their family?
- What was their childhood like?
- What are defining moments in their life?
- What are their hopes / motivations / ambitions?
- How will this character develop through the story?
Personality and Characteristics
- What does this character look like?
- Do you associate specific colours or shapes with this character?
- What is their personal taste like?
- What things do they hate / love?
- Do they value looks or fashion?
- Are their clothes more functional or expressive?
- How do they see themselves?
- How do they want to be seen by others?
- Are they hiding something about themself?
- Are they in touch with their culture?
- How do they relate to their culture or heritage?
- What specific skills do they have?
- How do these skills manifest in their way of dress / looks?
You’ll find that some questions act only as invisible backstory. Others will actually help you to make design decisions for the costumes.
Don't be afraid to go back and forth between world building and character design! The two will most likely inform each other. Think about the questions and explore the world in your head. The characters will develop naturally the more you'll let them "live"!
Fantasy Stories
When writing stories set in the Fantasy genre, there are some additional things you have to pay attention to. For example, think about External and Internal logic. You’ll have to balance realism with fantasy for audiences to understand your world. These same rules apply to costume design. Additionally, the Iceberg Theory might be interesting to think about. It’s easy to get caught up in the details of your world. If you’re not equipped with the right tools, you’ll get lost in the maze of your own worldbuilding!
Conclusion
World-building questions will help you to understand in which world the character and clothes live. Just like in real life, we can learn a great deal about a person’s culture or self-image from the way they present themselves. When writing a story, you are effectively reverse engineering this culture. A coherent, vast world manifests itself in thoughtful details, which brings visual depth to your characters and their environment.
We have some blogs about the worldbuilding we do for our own projects. For example, take a look at the world building behind the Syntactic Labyrinth costumes.
Reading List
References
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