Costume design

Seke Chimutengwende and Stephanie McMann in Detective Work. Photograph: Hugo Glendinning

I am a psychotherapist, a costume designer, and a creative consultant. As well as a private practice I have been working on projects that have spanned music, fashion, film, theatre, dance, and art. 

After a degree in communication design at UAL. I worked for several years with designers in fashion and as a stylist, I followed my fascination with the construction of clothing, training in London in bespoke tailoring. From here my production skills have taken me into projects working in art and film. An MA in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy took my interest in the material of things a layer deeper. This relationality carried through into my costume design. I am interested in the alchemy of bringing together individuals and materials into a creative process to discover and pare back to the essence of what is being communicated. 

I have developed a collaborative approach well suited to working within the process of the dance world. Work has included a collaboration for over 10 years alongside choreographer Seke Chimutenguende ( https://www.sekechimutengwende.com/CHOREOGRAPHY ) and other dance pieces, including the recent Neurolive projects (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/nov/01/dance-brain-neurolive-detective-work-vangeline-siobhan-davies ). 

My work attunes to the body of a piece of work and the individuals making it, to discover the costume’s identity within the piece.

A varied training has allowed me to use some unique tools, holding in mind the budgets and capacity of a production, I am constructing clothes and a palette to help performers in a way that enhances them and the production as a whole. Listening to the truth of the project and the individual as they relate. 

A playful sense of what we choose to dress ourselves in supports our point of perspective and heightens what is felt in the communication of a moment.