Paul Tazewell on imaginative and prescient behind “Depraved” costume transformation and telling tales via clothes

Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell says his artistic course of for “Depraved” started with summary ideas, reworking the land of Oz via detailed costume design.

“That was the place the concept of the spiral got here into play for ‘Depraved,’ and the concept of the feel of mushrooms,” Tazewell mentioned. “I’m working to align these parts.”

The designer, who made historical past as the primary Black man to win an Oscar for costume design, described how his strategy focuses on character growth.

“All of it’s about telling tales via what my medium is, which is clothes, and making these characters visually extra fascinating or extra particular,” Tazewell mentioned.

His reimagining of the long-lasting witch’s hat demonstrates his revolutionary strategy.

“It was a lot of issues. One was that there is the second when Glinda offers the hat to Elphaba, which is given as a joke,” Tazewell defined. “The best way that John Chu needed to start out the movie, he was describing it from the very starting, that it might be, you’ll see it from a distance, and it might seem like a mountain, and you then’d are available in shut and also you notice it.”

The costume designer’s journey started within the Midwest.

“We might sleep exterior and behind our home in Akron, Ohio, and dream about what our lives can be as adults,” Tazewell mirrored. “It was being, turning into well-known, and, , main a glamorous life… however I did not know that it might give me the complete, wealthy life that I’ve had, which has been being a dressing up designer, working with superb abilities, with the ability to inform actually vital tales.”

With this Oscar win, Tazewell expressed gratitude for the chance to encourage others.

“Being an inspiration for simply all the younger individuals who discover themselves on this planet of costume and need to specific themselves creatively. I imply, it is precisely the place I got here from, as effectively creating as a artistic individual, going from eager to be a performer to eager to be a dressing up designer, and discovering my energy in that. I am so grateful.”