Jobs you can get with a costume degree?

The Northern October 24, 2017

Sometimes trying to articulate your career aims can be difficult. Especially if no one has experience of the industry in which you’d like to work. Here we have compiled a list of useful information if you’re trying to explain your future costume career – in particular when someone asks you what jobs you can get with a costume degree.

We don’t speak for all degrees, as our costume degree is a little bit different from others out there – we put special emphasis on making; because in all honesty, we know what is where the jobs are. You will know how to design, but above all else, you will know how to make to an exceptional level. We also give students varied skills in millinery, leatherwork and tailoring – to make them that little more employable. So this list may provide a more comprehensive list of jobs than offered by studying your typical costume degree.

Costume making is obviously a big one for our graduates! Whether that be for a wonderful company such as Angels – the world’s largest privately owned collection of costumes for film, tv and theatre or setting up on your own such as the wonderful Northern Costumiers.

There are so many wardrobe departments on the many tv and theatre productions in the united kingdom alone! We’ve seen graduates work on some amazing productions including:

• Exodus: Gods and Kings, starring Christian Bale and directed by CCAD alumnus Sir Ridley Scott (20th Century Fox)
• Into the Woods, starring Meryl Streep (Disney)
• Sherlock Holmes, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC)
• Wolf Hall, starring Damien Lewis (BBC)
• Victor Frankenstein, Starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe
• Beowulf
• ‘Victoria’ starring Jenna Coleman (ITV)
• Rogue One – Star Wars
• ‘SS-GB’ starring Sam Riley (BBC)
• Hospital People starring Tom Binns, Russell Brand, Amit Shah
• Safehouse
• Inspector George Gently Starring Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby
• Gunpowder Starring Kit Harington, Liv Tyler, Shaun Dooley and Mark Gatiss

alison lyons costume graduate 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' and shows me working on James Norton (Sir Clifford Chatterley). — Costume graduate Alison lyons working on James Norton (Sir Clifford Chatterley) during the filming of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Some have even ventured in to live performance and we’ve seen them work with companies such as Northern Ballet, Opera North, National Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Eleven Arches on epic productions such as Kynren.

Some other amazing careers our costume degree can lead to include: