Course
Costume Design is the art of creating clothes for performers and characters in theater productions and films.
The short course in Costume Design enables students to understand costumes from a cultural point of view, prioritizing design methodology and practical experience with a specific focus on Broadway musical productions, for the summer edition of the course, and film production, for the winter edition of the course.
The ultimate goal of Costume Design is to provide fashion design students with an in-depth understanding of the costume design sector. This offers them valuable insights into the world of musical production (summer edition) or film production (winter edition), and gives them the chance to design costumes for famous characters under the guidance of Broadway director and choreographer Lorin Latarro (summer edition) or film costume designer Jeffrey Kurland (winter edition).
Students will acquire knowledge of the cultural aspects of costume design and become familiar with the inner workings of Broadway (summer edition) or the film industry (winter edition). They will learn how to develop a costume design for a specific character, from the initial visual concept through to the final design and prototypes, receiving individual feedback from professors with extensive industry experience.
In addition to Lorin Latarro (summer edition) or Jeffrey Kurland (winter edition), the main lecturers on the course are select costume designers and a team of professors with extensive experience in the fashion industry.
Mentorship
Mentors share tools, guidance, motivation and resources with students throughout their program. They play an important role in the professional lives of young students. Â
Jeffrey Kurland
Costume Designer
Mentor of the Winter edition
Jeffrey Kurland (Costume Designer) has collaborated with Christopher Nolan on the director’s acclaimed epic Dunkirk, for which Kurland earned a Costume Designer’s Guild Award nomination, the 2010 worldwide hit Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and the action thriller Tenet.
Kurland has devoted much of his career to designing the costumes for Woody Allen films. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design for the director’s Bullets Over Broadway and won a BAFTA Award for his work on Radio Days. His collaborations with Allen also include Everyone Says I Love You, Mighty Aphrodite, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Husbands and Wives, Shadows and Fog, Alice, Crimes and Misdemeanors, New York Stories, Another Woman, September, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Broadway Danny Rose.
His other recent credits include Christopher McQuarrie’s actioner Mission: Impossible-Fallout, the sixth installment in the blockbuster franchise, starring Tom Cruise; The Dictator, starring Sasha Baron Cohen; Richard LaGravenese’s Beautiful Creatures; Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney; Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters, starring Malissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, and Leslie Jones; Disney’s Haunted Mansion, directed by Justin Simien, starring LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, and Danny DeVito; and the soon-to-be-released Alto Knights, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro.
In addition, Kurland served as the Costume Designer on F. Gary Gray’s crime thriller Law Abiding Citizen, starring Jamie Fox and Gerard Butler; the adventure Nim’s Island, starring Jodie Foster; Andrew Fleming’s mystery adventure Nancy Drew, starring Emma Roberts in the title role; Stephen Hopkins’ supernatural thriller The Reaping; Michael Mann’s dramatic thriller Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox; Joe Johnston’s action adventure Hidalgo, starring Virgo Mortenson; and the thriller Criminal, produced by Steven Soderbergh. He also worked with Soderbergh as the Costume Designer on the hit films Ocean’s Eleven, featuring an all-star cast, and Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts, for which he earned a Costume Designers Guild Award. His other credits include Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon, Neil Jordan’s In Dreams, Richard LaGravenese’s Living Out Loud, P.J. Hogan’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, and the Nora Ephron films This Is My Life and Mixed Nuts.
Kurland has served as governor on the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 12 years, as well as the Academy’s Vice President for 4 of those years.
Lorin Latarro
Director and Choreographer
Mentor of the Summer edition
Lorin Latarro choreographed Broadway’s recent Into The Woods, Waitress, Mrs. Doubtfire, Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber, Waiting For Godot with Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart, Merrily We Roll Along at Roundabout, Assassins at Encores, La Traviata at The Metropolitan Opera, Chess at The Kennedy Center, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 21 Chump Street for This American Life (Brooklyn Academy of Music), The Public Theater’s The Visitor, Twelfth Night and The Odyssey (Public Works, Delacorte Theater), Fanny and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (City Center Encores!), and A Christmas Carol at McCarter Theatre.
She is currently developing Lauren Sandler’s novel This Is All I Got and recently directed Candace Bushnell’s one-woman show, Is There Still Sex In The City at the Daryl Roth Theatre, which became a New York Times Critic’s Pick. Additional directing credits include Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – The Immersive Experience, Queen Of The Night, which garnered a Drama Desk Award, The David Foster and Kat McPhee Show, #DateMe at The Westside Theatre, A Taste Of Things To Come at Chicago’s Nederlander Broadway, Swelling And Irritation by Jodi Picoult and Tim McDonald, Trails by Jeff Thompson and Christy Hall, Rodgers After Hammerstein – 92Y Lyrics and Lyricists, and Beth Malone’s Three Part Harmony at Theatre Aspen.
Lorin Latarro holds a BFA from The Juilliard School, where she is an adjunct professor. She holds a secondary degree from NYU Tisch Film and Television Directing Fundamentals. She is a Drama Desk, Lortel, and Chita Rivera nominee. Lorin has traveled to India and Africa multiple times to work with The Gates Foundation in family health and planning and is the founder of ArtAmmo.org Artists Against Gun Violence, as seen in the New York Times, PBS, Rachel Maddow, and the BBC.
Who it's for
This course is aimed at fashion students that want to expand their knowledge of the costume design field.
Outcomes
At the end of this course students will produce a portfolio of work that includes visual research on selected musicals, costume designs for selected musical characters and prototype ideas (summer edition), or selected film scripts, costume designs for selected film characters and prototype ideas (winter edition).
Curriculum
The curriculum of the short course in Costume Design includes a range of subjects that will help students develop their skills and knowledge in the field. Some of the key topics covered include:
- History of Costume: cultural analysis of costume design, with a focus on theater (summer edition) or film (winter edition) production
- Costume Design: fashion design focusing on the specific sector of costume design
- Patternmaking: developing patterns for the creation of costume designs
- Prototyping: creation of costume design mock-ups
- Graphics and portfolio: guidance for the visual realization of a final portfolio for the student
Requirements
Application requirements are:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV) with motivation letter
- English language proficiency
- Secondary school (high school) diploma or equivalent
- Previous knowledge of fashion design
Certificates
Once you complete the short course in Costume Design, you will receive Polimoda’s Official Certificate of Attendance.
This certificate will strengthen your CV and expand your career opportunities.
Student works
