CDG - The Costume Designer

Her first feature as costume designer, The Man Who ell to Earth, starring David Bowie, remains shocking and fresh nearly years later. She said, "I'd never had to deal with anyone in a Hollywood film. I had designed this costume, which was made out of a strange fabric, and I thought it was normal for an actor to stand for two hours as I fit him. I was internally grateful, but presumed he was doing it because it was always a team effortinstead of realizing that he was uniue." Despite medical boots, a corset, and pads, Bowie looked " marvelous, I was constantly thrilled with looking at him." ears later, The Academy purchased the original drawing for ,. A robust career followed, including Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Being There, Splash, My avorite ear, Newsies, Ronin, and Reindeer Games. She designed for television and garnered two Emmy nominations for Andersonville and Lucy Desi: Before the Laughter. She also received a CDGA nomination for George Wallace. Routh was an advocate for many colleagues and young people and served as a teacher at Woodbury College in Burbank. She asked her students to draw, rather than work digitally, because she believed it fostered imagination. Routh also felt "so much of costume design is negotiating and diplomacy." Drawing often became a second language with her collaborators. Peter Sellers loved Routh's sketches for the poetic and prescient movie, Being There. This freed her to revel in her English background and create uintessential men's silhouettes in tweeds and annels to define his character. The last words of the film are "life is a state of mind." or Routh, that meant living a life defined by art. "life a s ta te md," R, t 't liv a life f t. Ronin, Being There, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Man Who ell to Earth 48 THE COSTUME DESIGNER | FALL 2022

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