Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1529398
10 WINTER 2025 O B I GA R L A N D has spent much of her career researching and discussing costume history and the art of costume. Last year, she was honored with the Motion Picture Costumers Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing her efforts in education and for creating an oral history of Local 705. Garland grew up in a small L I F E T I M E A C H I E V E M E N T By Erin Wenrick Bobi Garland B Iowa town and lived in Boston and New York before moving to Los Angeles to work in film. Through her friendship with Costume Designer Susie DeSanto, she found her way into costume. "I think that everyone has at least one gi and mine is finding things." Susie hired her to do research for a woman's Western called Bad Girls (1994), working out of Western Costume. DeSanto introduced her to Eddie Marks and the timing coincided with Western's purchase of the Dorothy Weaver Collection. Bobi was assigned to help integrate the collection, aka hang up the costumes. "I had no formal training in costumes, so I relished the opportunity to handle all those beautiful clothes. Donna Roberts ran the women's department and she was an incredible teacher. I also had the benefit of working with three legendary old-timers: Bill Burchee, Linda Taylor, and Ken Ovard. They all truly believed that every costume told a story and then another story and then another story." Sally Nelson-Harb, the research librarian at the time, retired and Marks asked Garland to take over the position, a dream for her. "Day to day was never the same. I tried to approach everything as a new project. I never thought, 'Well, I've already done 400 World War II movies.' I always tried to see it as if I'd never studied World War II before. And so, everything was always new because history, and costume, are always a maer of interpretation." Part of her job was to facilitate primary research for production costume departments. Garland quickly discovered that interviews and firsthand accounts gave the designers and crews special insight PHOTO: (OPPOSITE) MICHAEL GARLAND