“Often, we ourselves don’t realize how much the clothes we wear say about us,” says film costume designer Monika Vėbraitė. Having worked on Lithuanian and international films such as Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter, The Tokyo Trial, Miracle, Nova Lituania, and more, she is certain: costumes in film can also tell a story. Monika Vėbraitė shares more about the profession of a costume designer with the Vilnius Film Office.
Let’s start from the beginning—how did you discover cinema, and why did you choose this path?
I have always been interested in the arts in a general sense, so it was not by chance that I chose to study scenography, as the discipline allowed combining more than one artistic field. Back then, scenographers were trained only for the theater. Still, even then, I tended to gravitate toward a cinematic visual solution, both in scenery and costumes. I ended up at the cinema by chance when Agnė Rimkutė and Daiva Petrulytė invited me to assist them. So I got most of the practical lessons on the job. Later, I had several occasions to assist foreign costume designers and eventually started working independently.
The most fascinating thing about cinema is that there is never a routine, and you must constantly stay curious and keep learning new things. It’s as if with each new film you dive into an undiscovered world and unravel it piece by piece. It is often necessary to delve into historical periods, certain cultures, specialties, etc. From a practical point of view, the work is very dynamic. We sometimes joke that a film crew is like a caravan or a traveling circus that never stays in one place. Costumes can also tell a story in a movie. It makes sense, and even extras in mass scenes contribute to creating the appropriate mood and introduce the story about to be told.
Could you tell us more about what a costume designer does? Who from the shooting crew do you have to collaborate with the most?
Generally, the costume designer’s responsibility is to convey the film’s story as organically as possible through the characters’ costumes. The most important thing is to respond to the director’s vision and help the actors create a convincing character. Therefore, we cooperate closely with the actors, make-up department, and visual artists. For every historical era, it’s important to recreate the authentic costume as accurately as possible to match the character you’re developing. If it’s a modern project, it’s best to reflect the character’s personality and emotional states as accurately as possible. We often don’t even realize how much the clothes we wear reveal about us. With the costume, we define the period, the character’s social status, often profession, hobbies, mood, emotional condition, and their shifts in great detail. The film costume designer’s task is to tell what is not expressed verbally.
How many costumes may one film need? When does your work begin in the filmmaking process, and when do you consider the project finished?
The number itself depends only on the specific scenario. There may be thousands or only one if the story involves only one actor and the entire story takes place in a very short period. But in any case, doubles and warm clothes are usually required, so the technical base of the costumes is greater than what we see on screen.
The costume designer starts work a little earlier than most team members. In my opinion, this is the most important and probably the most interesting part, when you start to ‘search’ for characters after receiving the script. You have to delve into various periods, historical events, cultures, and subcultures. Often an unexpected combination seen on the street, a work of art seen in a gallery, or a book you’ve read can be inspirational. After discussing the options with the director, we find out what is most important for each character, and this becomes our base for the search and production of costumes. The creative work ends with the last day of shooting; the technical completion takes a little more time. However, every film always remains in our hearts because, while working on it, you do not pause your own life. Sometimes I think I would do the same film differently today simply because I am different.
Do you remember your first film project? What seemed the most challenging back then? What was the most important lesson you learned at that time?
The first full-length film I worked on independently was Eglė Vertelytė’s “Miracle”. Since the events in the script take place in the early 90s in a small Lithuanian town, I had to delve into the nuances of clothing of that time, connecting them with specific characters. The biggest challenge was undoubtedly to collect as many authentic clothes as possible. Family members, relatives, and Eglė’s parents also helped a lot. At that time, every shooting day was like a challenge. We had to be able to prepare, to age the characters, to react to the changing shooting schedule or the weather. Often, difficult projects teach me much more. After completing them, I feel like I have grown.
What are some of the other projects you’ve worked on that are the most memorable, and the most rewarding professionally?
The Lithuanian film “Nova Lituania” comes to mind, as well as the foreign series “Clarke” and “Ronja”.
“Nova Lituania” was full of challenges, because it was a black-and-white, historical, and low-budget film, so there were challenges not only in costume choices but also in putting them in black and white. Materiality, fabric texture, patterns, and different tones of black, when different colors on the screen become different tones of grey, were extremely important. Another challenge was to show a beautiful historical period with minimal costumes and few details.
In “Clark” we worked with a very cool costume designer from the United Kingdom. Together with my colleague, we prepared actors for mass scenes. The series shows many different periods of the last century, so it was difficult, but extremely interesting to turn the same person into a character from different periods with the help of a costume alone.
The Swedish project “Ronja” was interesting, delving into even older times. Since the plot is based on a fairy tale, the costume designer freely combined elements of both medieval and Viking costumes. Practically all the costumes in the project were handmade. While preparing for shooting, I visited countless artisans, looked for details in markets, and fairs, and collected furs, bones, skins, etc. Such projects once again prove how much inspiration we can draw not only from the periods of Western civilization but also from our ethnographic heritage.
How much influence does the costume have on character development? I’m talking about its aesthetic meaning as well as the mood, character traits, and other things it can reveal and highlight.
Usually, when we first see a hero or character, we immediately get one impression or another just from his appearance, including costume, make-up, and maybe a specific prop. Sometimes the character’s traits are highlighted by the silhouette, the color, the small details of the costume, and sometimes by the way the costume is worn, whether it restricts or, on the contrary, creates a sense of freedom. In each specific case, we look for which of the above-mentioned things will allow the character and story’s flow to unfold the best.
How do you manage to respond to the director’s idea and at the same time support your creative style and ideas? How much freedom does a costume designer have?
Usually, for me, the most important role is the story itself and the idea of what you want to talk about and that gives you a starting point. However, the idea is usually brought by the director, so after reading the script and discussing it, the main points that can be my foundation are already laid out. Putting together the possible costumes of the characters, looking for images, and deciding on their combinations and changes is the freest stage, because everything depends on your imagination. Only later, when going through them with the director, actors, cinematographer, artist, and make-up artist, do we change, add or subtract something.
What period, or theme costumes are you most interested in? Why? Do you have a favorite genre or period?
I couldn’t single out a specific period or theme, because I realized that when I work on a historical film, I miss the contemporary one and vice versa. The same can be said about themes. Every time I become more and more convinced that there are no dull topics or periods, interest arises when I start to delve into something. When I work on a film, it is the most important at that moment, we all live it, and go through it, and its theme touches us inside in one way or another.
It often happens that you discover extremely beautiful, interesting, meaningful things and you cannot show them all, because you would just simply overload the image. Sometimes you find an incredibly unique silhouette, but you can’t find that character in the script, and then you carry those images around and wait for a project to use them.
As a costume designer, what challenge would you like to face in the future?
In a way, every new film is a challenge for me. Navigating the script and characters is always interesting because in any case, be it a bygone period with historical costumes or a modern-day story about a single man, it always creates a new unique world. As far as I remember, I have never worked on a film that was not related to a specific period or story, where anything could happen at any time. I think that, on the one hand, it would be very interesting when nothing would restrict freedom, on the other hand, it would be quite difficult because there would be no starting points and the entire visual world would depend only on the creative team.
Thank you for the conversation.
