TV costume designers roundtable panel: ‘The Boys,’ ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ ‘Loot,’ ‘The Sandman,’ ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Five of the hardest-working TV costume designers recently joined Gold Derby for our Meet the Experts group panel discussion: Michael Ground (“The Boys”), Leslie Kavanagh (“The Handmaid’s Tale“), Kirston Leigh Mann (“Loot”), Sarah Arthur (“The Sandman“) and Laura Montgomery (“What We Do in the Shadows”). In our Q&A, these talented costumers talk about misconceptions people have about their work and what it’s like seeing their costumes worn at Halloween, Comic-Con, etc. Watch our exclusive video roundtable above and click on each artisan’s name to be taken to their individual interview.

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Montgomery tells us, “I would say the misconceptions are that it’s glamorous, that all you do is shop.” She notes how “the clothes are the things that get seen, but then there’s a large part of it that is actually logistics, scheduling, money tracking, budgeting and people management. You’re the creative head of the department, so you could have 20 to more people working for you. So there is a lot of people managing, and that’s a component of it that doesn’t really get talked about much when you think of a costume designer.”

Mann chimes in, “I couldn’t have said it better. People think it’s glamorous. People think that they want to do it. Every friend is calling me, ‘My daughter wants to do it.’ And I say, ‘Give them to me for one week,'” she chuckles. “And not many of them stick around after cleaning shoes, or dyeing something, or you know.”

Arthur agrees with the group, adding, “It’s a lot harder than anyone every thinks it is. The hours are incredibly long.” She later confesses, “Today I’ve been standing in the middle of a field in the pouring rain up to my knees in mud, terrible weather. You know, it’s not glamorous.”

Ground reveals, “I can’t tell you the amount of times where on Day 28 straight of 18-hour days, someone is like, ‘Oh, your job is so much fun.’ And I’m like, ‘I just want to fall over.’ [People think] you play dress-up and you shop, and it’s like no. That would be the biggest misconception.” He explains how his brother is one of his costume assistants now, “so he can go and tell the truth to everybody.”

Kavanagh states that “time” is another factor that doesn’t get taken much into consideration. “What it takes to make something — I think there’s a lot of people that really do not understand,” she says. “You never say no really, but you’re like, ‘Oh, we’ll try our best.’ And you hope that the little wardrobe wizards in the back room can make it … The turnaround for what it is to pump these costumes out, it’s incredible.”

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