Helen Mear wins BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation with Design Student of the Year Award 2025!
Spotlight on BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation with Design student Helen Mear who received the Costume Student of the Year award 2025 at this years degree show. The Award celebrates “a high degree of commitment and professionalism throughout the graduating students from BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation for Design.” Helen joined the school as a mature student, she said “after being fascinated by social history and costume design for years, I chose to make a career change as a mature student moving from Lincolnshire to Hartlepool to study for a Costume degree. After visiting a few University Costume degree open days, the course at Northern School of Art stood out as having extra content with modules dedicated to Millinery and Tailoring, and benefitted from having the Northern School of Art Costume archive for hands on study of vintage garments.”
Speaking of her experience on the course Helen reflected, “The Costume department tutors, technicians and Library staff were invaluable in their knowledge and support throughout the three years of my degree course, and I was lucky enough to gain work experience in the second year with three other students making costumes for the Billingham Players performance of Quartet.” and that her favourite thing about Hartlepool was “to visit the Marina or walk along the beach at Seaton Carew to help relax after busy weeks of working on module deadlines.”
Helens FMP work was inspired by the ‘Weyward’ novel by Emilia Hart, she explains “After completing historical and social research, I designed costumes for two different eras, and to reflect two character’s personalities, inspired by the ‘Weyward’ novel by Emilia Hart. To construct the costumes, I used and built upon Millinery skills learnt in the second year of the course creating felt blocked hats. I attended a workshop at London Fashion and Textile Museum to improve my silk sewing skills to construct Violet’s blouse. The silk was custom printed with a damselfly pattern I created on Illustrator, with the pleats and shoulder wings inspired by an original 1930s blouse I viewed at Leicestershire Museums Collection archive. Violet was re-set from the novel as living in 1930s, instead of 1940s, with an affinity to insects and birds further reflected by her hand cut silk feathers, which were hand dyed and sewn individually onto her jacket. Meanwhile, William’s character was grieving, whilst also scared and superstitious of witches in Jacobean 1619, for which I adapted a Janet Arnold ‘Patterns of Fashion’ 1618 doublet and hose pattern, which I then decorated with a historical slashing technique I personalised for William by cutting apotropaic anti-witchcraft marks into his clothing.”
Speaking of her award win Helen commented “I was very surprised to be nominated, and even more shocked and excited to win.”
Helen said favourite memory about the course and time at the school was “the millinery module gaining skills I had no experience of previously, and it was exciting to see the costume which I made for Billingham Players in action on the stage.” and after graduation she is “excited to be looking for work experience opportunities within costume, either in theatre or TV and film, to gain hands on experience of different aspects of costume roles..”
Her advice for students is to “take advantage of as many work experience opportunities as you can; go to the Uni Library as they have a massive amount of resources both online and in printed books and specialist journals; and attend additional workshops whether they are internal workshops within the Costume department or other departments such as Printing or Textiles.”
Keep up to date with Helen on her Instagram: @HelenMearCostume. Check out her portfolio here. Our BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation with Design degree offers students the skills and opportunities needed to carve out successful careers in the stage & screen industries. Alumni from this programme have worked on world famous sets and stages across the country and internationally. Find out more here.
