COSTUME DESIGN & FASHION STYLING

THE UNCANNY MENAGERIE (2026)

USC MFA THESIS, SHORT FILM
COSTUME DESIGNER

This short film involved recreating various famous pop-culture fashion icons and moments for a variety of both male and female mannequins. One of the challenges was making the designs distinct enough for recognizability, while also avoiding copyright issues, as well as the fact that these mannequins could not disassemble completely and were stuck to one pose— leading to the hurdle of constructing garments that could open in a way to get the mannequins inside without destroying the integrity of the outfits.

As costume designer, I handled all the mannequins outfits, from clothes to shoes and wigs, alongside the actual living actors’ costumes.

The film jumps between modern day and circa 2009, so studying the late 2000s fashion trends was vital. The two main characters are both played by the same actor, so when hand-tailoring the costumes, I had to subtly adjust proportions and accessories to make them look older or younger. I also studied fashion trends within specifically Michigan, where the film takes place, and a few neighboring states for the out-of-town tourist ensemble that comes in and out of the film.

Keeping the world grounded, despite all the campy mannequins, came down to the colors aging with the characters and pieces of clothing being altered and exchanged between characters throughout the film to follow their emotional stories and growth.

MORE PHOTOS TO COME…

Dear Mr. Hitman (2025)

USC MFA CAPSTONE, SHORT FILM
COSTUME DESIGNER

When working on this film, the director regularly referred to Pixar animated movies as the direction they wanted to take this action-comedy.

For these costumes, we decided to step away from realism and lean into a bit of a cartoon-ish feel, but without going so far into the cartoon vibes that the costumes became campy and outlandish. I chose to do this by giving each of the characters a much more flat color palette. Each character had a primary color that led their closet, rather than entire individualized palettes, such as the “villain” of the film consistently being in orange— a secondary color being pulled from the primary color red, which the main character’s clothes slowly work towards red, until after the film resolves, and they soften back into a light pink. I also brought in some cartoon-ish elements with bold patterns and instead of a lot of realistic jewelry and accessories, giving outfits one large statement piece, such as hand making the hitman’s iconic milkman hat where a large ribbon bow comedically sits on his head during the final brawl.

In creating each character’s collection of clothes, alongside color, we gave each character an iconic cartoon character to emulate in their clothing. The lead husband was comped to Spongebob, and the main character hiring the hitman was a Lola Bunny trying to become a Jessica Rabbit.

The main challenge with this project came down simply to the timeline and scale. There was a need to fill up an entire office, winery, and bakery with background actors, alongside an ensemble cast going through several time-skipping montage, so there was just a large amount of clothes needing to be retrieved, fitted, altered, and organized on set at all times.

FORSAKEN (2024)

USC MFA, SHORT FILM
COSTUME DESIGNER

Apocalyptic projects are always simultaneously fun and intense, and creating zombie apocalypse survivors for this film was definitely in that category. Due to the quick turnaround needed for this project, we sourced several pre-destroyed pieces for the background actors from RED Studios, allowing more attention towards the main characters’ clothes.

The story primarily centered around a mother having to let go of her infected son. To portray the warmth of a mother’s love, I gave the main character a deep red flannel to wear over colder colors, as the mother later ends up covering her infected son, thus transferring the only warm colors on her clothing palette to her son as one last act of love as she loses her biggest love.

Most of the pieces had to be hand-altered and aged, and on all the clothes, I did varying combinations of dirt, sweat stains, and blood.

HO’O MAKAUKAU (2024)

USC MFA, SHORT FILM
COSTUME DESIGNER

MEN ON BOATS (2022)

UCR, THEATRE
COSTUME ASSISTANT

As a costume assistant, I helped with garment construction, all the way from making patterns, to draping, to sewing and altering, as well as costume shop archival organization and upkeep maintenance in-between performances with things such as steaming, ironing, hand cleaning pieces, and fixing any potential damages made in performances.

This theatre costume shop did not source any clothes outside, and every single piece of clothing worn by actors was handmade by the team of assistants, including myself.

For this play, each piece of clothing had to be heavily aged as the play follows a whole ensemble of characters traversing through an expedition in the 1800s. With the nature of live performances instead of films, each piece had to be aged to an extreme amount in order for it to read correctly under stage lights.

A challenge that came in constructing all these garments was that “Men on Boats” is a play where gender roles get reversed, and a cast of women all play men in the 1800s. Each actor had to be meticulously measured and have each piece of clothing altered in a way that accounted for things such as their chests and hips in order to reconstruct their figures on stage to resemble the traditionally male body in silhouette.

RED OLEANDER (2022)