{"id":44620,"date":"2017-03-20T14:32:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T18:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=44620"},"modified":"2022-09-29T11:54:45","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:54:45","slug":"fashion-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2017\/03\/20\/fashion-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Fashion show"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it stands right now, Wright State University\u2019s theatre, dance and motion pictures<\/a> students have it all to themselves \u2014 courses on costuming and a costume shop filled with colorful fabrics and racks of clothing that can time-machine the wearers to Shakespeare\u2019s England or the Roaring Twenties.<\/p>\n

But that may soon change.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bourgeois, assistant professor of costume design, wants to make costuming available campuswide \u2014 to students from business to engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re interested in opening our costume design, costume construction, pattern drafting and draping, and costume history courses to the entire university,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to letting students pursue their passion and find out what they thought might have been a hobby can actually be a lifestyle and a career choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said many students might have hidden talents that have simply gone undeveloped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may have muscles they haven\u2019t exercised that they want to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Located in the Creative Arts Center, the costume shop supports performances produced by Wright State\u2019s Theatre and Dance programs. (Photos by Erin Pence)<\/p><\/div>\n

Bourgeois said costuming can lead to jobs to the fashion, theater, film, television and video industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin theater and film alone, there is a huge industry of costumers across the country and internationally \u2014 ballet, opera, dance companies, theater companies,\u201d she said. \u201cThey employ costumers, designers, people who are building the clothes, the people who are doing the wigs, the hair, the makeup. The film industry is even bigger. \u2026If you\u2019re watching \u2018Saturday Night Live,\u2019 there is an army of costumers back there \u2014 people doing the hair, doing the wigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wright State costume shop, which is in the basement of the Creative Arts Center, is populated with industrial sewing machines and irons, cutting tables and mannequin-like dress forms.<\/p>\n

Cones of colorful thread hang on the walls. Tape measures and pounce wheels sprawl on the tabletops. Boxes bulge with belts, hats, bow ties, zippers and suspender clips. In the fitting room, there are eyeglasses and ring sizers. On the floor is a row of green-and-white saddle shoes that look like they\u2019ve just been kicked off at a sock hop.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our lab, it\u2019s our classroom, it\u2019s our workshop,\u201d she said. \u201cIn this room we do everything from draping and patterning, fitting actors, building the costumes, dying the costumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A steady \u201csnip, snip, snip\u201d of scissors can be heard as the students cut fabric.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe burn through scissors,\u201d said Bourgeois.<\/p>\n

The costume shop supports Wright State\u2019s Theatre and Dance programs. During plays and performances, the room is used to maintain and launder costumes.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois said costumers need to have an eye for colors and textures as well as be problem-solvers and good storytellers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be interested and understand how people work and what they want,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is psychology. There is a lot of history and anthropology because you\u2019re telling stories from different places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bourgeois has always loved clothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up understanding and looking at how people used what they wore to express themselves \u2014 what a power suit does, what uniforms are, how they work and how they communicate ideas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Elizabeth Bourgeois joined the faculty in Wright State’s Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures last August and teaches classes in costume design, costume construction and advanced design studio.<\/p><\/div>\n

Bourgeois was raised in Ishpeming, a remote city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the shores of Lake Superior. The name Ishpeming comes from the Ojibwe Indians and means \u201cheaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more Scandinavian or Finnish than American,\u201d said Bourgeois. \u201cIt is a beautiful landscape, beautiful water. I think it formed a love of color and movement. I learned to watch the things around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a teenager, Bourgeois initially wanted to be an architect and then a film designer, designing backgrounds and landscapes. But then she had an \u201caha\u201d moment as a college student when she discovered the costume shop at Western Michigan University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really understood it, like the way the fabric worked,\u201d she recalled. \u201cClothing in general is very much about psychology, personality. In costuming, you\u2019re designing characters and telling stories in clothing when you\u2019re working on a film or a movie. When you work in fashion, it\u2019s actually more brilliant because you\u2019re designing the story of the person on the street, what they want themselves to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bourgeois graduated from Western Michigan with a bachelor\u2019s degree in performance and design and then received a full scholarship to New York University, where she obtain a master’s of fine arts in design with a focus on theater and film. After graduation, she worked at Juilliard School, designing films, videos and operas.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois was living in Brooklyn during the 9\/11 terrorist attacks and remembers standing in the street and watching the Twin Towers collapse. It was a life-changing moment that led to her re-evaluating her career, which was going very well in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understood art as being important and meaningful and design and what I did within it part of storytelling and creating messages,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it reminded me that I needed to be doing this work in bodies of people who don\u2019t have exposure to it. There are communities that need people to teach expression and creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she left New York in 2003 and took a job at the University of Michigan-Flint, teaching design and doing outreach theater work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found purpose there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She later moved to Los Angeles and taught at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.<\/p>\n

\u201cI taught engineers about theater and film design, giving them this creative outlet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Two engineering students who planned to go into electronics took her theater class and are now Disney imagineers, designing theme park rides and parades.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois then moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she started Team Chipmunk, a fashion company that produces an environmentally friendly children\u2019s line and has since expanded into hotel uniforms, ready-to-wear apparel and other things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Students who study costuming have landed jobs in the fashion, theater, film, television and video industries.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then she caught the teaching bug and joined the faculty at Wright State last August.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe facilities are lovely,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a workshop here. We have a laboratory. We can really do something with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bourgeois describes her costuming students as curious, adaptable, good collaborators and independent thinkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re scrappy. They\u2019re tough. They\u2019re driven. They work hard. They want to be here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She looks forward to expanding the program and sharing her passion with Wright State students campuswide.<\/p>\n

\u201cClothes are a really big deal,\u201d said Bourgeois. \u201cThere is a lot of power in them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Located in the Creative Arts Center, the costume shop supports performances produced by Wright State\u2019s Theatre and Dance programs. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":44625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,2023,4859,725,727,747,715,720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-faculty","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-home-news-sidebar","category-homepage-photos-and-video","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44620"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44629,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44620\/revisions\/44629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}