CDG - The Costume Designer

35 Designing principal costumes that are cuttingedge fash ion yet feel authentic and timeless, and , costumes for ex tras is daunting enough, but the biggest factor was extensive mobility for the vigorous dance numbers. "It may be jeans and Tshirts, but can they do a split, can they do a backhand spring off the roof of a taxi cab" The audience will never be aware of all the gussets put into pants or the hours of testing jeans for stretchmemory while shooting in degree heat on Manhat tan's asphalt streets. ecause the choreography asks so much of the clothes and the footwear, Travers was continually tasked with the costume's ability to deliver movement but still com municate street style. inding the perfect shoe or sneaker that supports the ankle and allows each dancer to pull off intense choreography was crucial. e studied footage from rehearsals, always trying to find ways to highlight the film's many different dance styles through the movement of the clothing. "My hope we did j fls like a coy dc •••s." aving lived in New ork's Washington eights for seven years, Travers had a bona fide understanding of what the commu nity looks like. During prep, he observed the neighborhood through different times of day, taking countless reference pho tos. "There was a day I left the trailer door open and someone walked past who was the perfect answer to a character I was developing. It was a lovely relationship to have with that com munity where I could find what I was looking for in the real world." ut authenticity was only the starting point. "ntil this musical, I hadn't really understood the scope of creating a heightened world where the audience is asked to believe that people can dance on the sides of buildings, defying gravity then the music cuts and they're back in the now. The costumes had to work for both realities." "We had big days with to background. When you're talking about filling city blocks, that is a lot of bodies." A pool seuence was an enormous undertaking, a movie all unto it self. Travers reuested the background actors be all shapes and sizes to showcase the atinx neighborhood over three generations. "That's all well and good until you put people in swimwear and insecurities arise. It's important to make ev eryone feel comfortable on camera." Travers chose his color palette for a s dream ballet in the middle of a train sta tion from the diversity in the atinx community. Waxing poetic he says, "orgeous skin tones fill the space in a way that felt delicate and soft and human." e also designed looks for anessa's Melissa arrera fashion collection, putting himself into the character's head to evoke what her design in uences would be. A latenightendofday reuest from director Chu to attach fireworks to a break dancer's sneakers, had the crew scrambling to find shoe options that would not create a fire hazard. "ut like every good costume department, there is al ways a way to solve the issue. We do what we do. We are a solutionbased department."

• Cover