How do you become an icon? Marisol was able to navigate popular culture with more than the usual canniness. Not only an iconic artist within the Pop art movement, she turned media to her advantage and circumvented the traps set out for women artists at the time. But how do you influence people’s perceptions of you? How do you use presentation to tell a story? Costume professional Cassie Elsaesser takes us through the making of an icon from the outside in.  

How can fashion and clothing choices be used to tell a story? 

In costume design, the first step is concept development and putting together mood boards. We think about each piece the character wears and what that says about them. Questions like: Why would this character reach for this sweater? Would this jacket that they are wearing look new, or would it be something they have had and worn in for a while? Often, the answers come from interpreting the situations laid out in the script: What is this character going through? What is going on inside their head? That helps determine what gets the character to reach for each article of clothing.  

A key part of designing is collaborating with the director to help relay their vision of the story through clothing. If a director tells wardrobe, “We want him in a suit,” that could mean so many things, but knowing the fuller picture of a character leads our decision making. Instead of thinking “suit” we think “Does this character comes from means? How old are they? What is their intention?” Let’s say this character is young and comes from means—for example, he’s trying to impress the people in the room and he’s trying to relay a position of power—that changes the vision from a suit to a much more specific suit. This narrows it down so much. We would see someone in a well-tailored suit that they spent a bit extra on. They are buttoned up a bit more, shoes are a little newer, etc.  

Personal style operates much the same way, except we are trying to visually depict the story about ourselves we portray to others. We dress to enhance what we want others to notice, or not notice, about us. Our clothing offers a method for others to infer something deeper about who we are, or who we want them to think we are.