<p>I’m a junior in high school and I’m an aspiring costume designer. I’ve heard the Brown has a good theater program, but will the department prepare me for a career in costume design? I’ve also heard that students have the option of taking courses at RISD. I know that RISD does not offer courses in costume design, but would their other courses in design be helpful to prepare for costume design?</p>
<p>Brown has a dual degree program with RISD where you take classes at both schools and end up with two degree’s; one from Brown and one from RISD. I think you have to do arts at both though I might be mistaken. You also have to apply seperatly to both and get accepted seperately in order to be considered into the 5 year program. Brown is mainly fine arts but I do know that RISD has apparel design which may lead you to a better path into costume design. As long as you learn the basics of sewing and construction, as you get more advanced into the course you can lean more advanced techniques about pattermaking, draping, and construction that will lead you to experiment into aspects of costume design. You might want to talk to a student in the program or ask the school itself about the program to clairfy.</p>
<p>EDIT- actually, you don’t have to major in arts at both schools. You can do say, math at Brown and then painting at RISD.</p>
<p>Does Brown/RISD allow me to take courses at RISD while being enrolled at Brown without actually doing the dual degree program?</p>
<p>^^^Yes. My daughter is a graduate of Brown and took a couple of RISD courses while enrolled at Brown and was not in a dual degree program.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. Is it difficult to take courses at RISD if I am a Brown student?
And does anyone know if Brown’s theater program is good for costume design?</p>
<p>The difficult thing about cross-registering is that the two schools have very different schedules, both during the semesters (many of RISD’s classes are a full day long, once a week meaning that Brown classes are impacted), and at each end of the semester (the beginning and ending dates are weeks apart).</p>
<p>It’s a HUGE pain in the butt to get a RISD class to work into your schedule, as franglish said. Even if you can get something to fit into your schedule, RISD kids get priority, so you might even get it.</p>
<p>And if I’m not mistaken, Brown students can only take 4 RISD classes altogether.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses. It’s very helpful.
But does anyone know if combining Brown’s theater program with RISD’s fashion classes be a goood way for me to learn about costume design?</p>
<p>Sorry, I also cannot answer you specific question, but I can tell you that this past year was the first year of the Brown/RISD dual degree program and I believe there were only about 20 students admitted.</p>
<p>kish: I suggest that you look at the RISD and Brown faculty in the areas you are interested and send them emails with your questions. There seems to be at least one RISD faculty member who does costume design; start with her. You also might want to go onto the CC arts forum and ask questions there.</p>
<p>I apologize in advance for the long post.
I’ve also looked at Brown for costume design, even though I’m not sure what I want to do. I would recommend Brown for an aspiring costume designer who wants a liberal arts education, or for one who is not entirely sure he/she wants to be a costume designer.</p>
<p>Brown offers maybe five or so classes in costume design, I think, covering all the bases (history, design, construction) but I’m not sure how often they are offered. Five is better than most schools, but if you know you want to be a costume designer, there are stronger schools (Indiana U, U-Alaska @ Fairbanks) but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to Brown for costuming.</p>
<p>At Brown, probably the majority of what you will learn in costuming will be from doing shows, and there are many opportunities to do shows. There are six or so shows that are faculty-directed and faculty-designed (if I remember correctly) and many more shows you can do through companies like Brownbrokers, Shakespeare on the Green, and more. You might also try costuming for some dance performances or something and find that you enjoy that.</p>
<p>Check out the website for the dep’t of theatre, speech and dance for costume pictures and more info on the many many theater groups at Brown. If you decide to apply, I think you should assemble a portfolio (if you don’t already have one) for admissions to send to Phillip Contic or someone, to evaluate. </p>
<p>I don’t know much about taking design classes at RISD but I know they have an amazing collection of costumes and textiles in their museum. Studying design of different kinds (esp. at RISD) certainly helps w/ costuming, but if you take classes there, you should focus on design over say, drawing IMO, because you just need to know how to convey the idea for a costume, and not necessarily in a drawing. (Some costumers decide they’d rather write about the design and do swatches, for instance.)
But anyway…
Here’s what I recommend: apply to Brown, hopefully you’ll get in, take a few costuming classes, a few design courses at RISD, work on a whole bunch of shows with a few different organizations at Brown, get an internship somewhere…then get a job on Broadway and then maybe go into fashion (a la Jane Suttell… look her up and check out her resume).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>In addition to the millions of advantages of going to Brown that you already know about (and read in the post above), you would also have have a chance to take classes from the master seamstress program in Providence. [The</a> Master Seamstress Program](<a href=“http://www.uri.edu/hss/tmd/master_seamstress_program.htm]The”>http://www.uri.edu/hss/tmd/master_seamstress_program.htm) While I know that not every costume designer agrees with me, being able to sew your own tailored suit makes you better at designing one.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for all the posts! I’ve learned a lot. And I’ll be sure to email the faculty.</p>