ne minute a theatre major is wearing the costumes, and the next he’s winning awards for designing the costumes.
That’s the journey assistant professor of costume design Brandon McWilliams’ life has taken. After receiving a theatre studies degree at the University of Texas at Austin, he earned his master’s in costume design at Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked on internationally acclaimed productions.
Since then, he’s designed costumes across the country for both professional and academic productions, receiving several costume design achievement awards.
McWilliams now works to give LSU students the wisdom he’s gained throughout his career as a professional costume designer.
“One of the greatest challenges for a young designer is to decide what they want,” McWilliams said. “I love helping them whittle down their options and get to the core of what they’re trying to say in their design work.”
McWilliams said he understands the uncertainty students face, as he never considered being a professional costume designer until he was asked to make something for one of his classes while attending UT-Austin.
“I walked into a costume shop my freshman year of college, and the designer there was like, “We need to make these hats for a production, can you do this?’” McWilliams said. “I was like, ‘Sure.’ and so I just did.”
After that, McWilliams said he was hooked and knew he wasn’t supposed to be an actor or singer but a costume designer.
McWilliams is working on designs for “Good Kids,” an LSU theatre production about students, social media and sexual assault opening Nov. 11. Though the subject matter is heavy, McWilliams said he’s excited to sketch designs, molding the characters through clothes.
“I feel like I have more ability to sculpt people on the stage through this medium and more opportunities to create honest, true people and create character,” McWilliams said.
Now, he’s infusing these sculpting skills into his understudies, including costume design graduate student Scott Heverling, who McWilliams led to LSU all the way from Alaska.
Heverling was attending the University of Alaska Anchorage when McWilliams came there to interview for a job. He ran into Heverling and interviewed him for a Georgia internship. Heverling got the internship, and the two worked together four months that summer. After McWilliams began working at LSU, Heverling contacted him about applying, and he’s now her designing.
Heverling also is working on the upcoming production of “Good Kids” alongside McWilliams.
“He has such a strong vision, and he’s a really wonderful mentor,” Heverling said. “He’s really interested in how he can better the production and make everything cohesive.”
The two are basing the designs for “Good Kids” on today’s teen trends, specifically those coming in fall 2015. They’ve researched the styles of contemporary teens in catalogs, including JC Penney and Wet Seal. Heverling said the goal is for the clothes to look like they could have come off the rack at those stores.
McWilliams and Heverling said they both love the psychology of clothing, giving meaning to everything each character will wear.
“What we wear as people tells so much of a story, and so color and light all influence how we look at people,” Heverling said. “So, when we look at characters, I think we can bring that out in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.”