A criminal justice major at UC San Diego, Dominique Fawn Hill was just like many students at UC Berkeley, wondering if her studies were something she truly enjoyed, or just something that paid the bills. She decided to take a costume practice class for fun and, realizing that this could be both a profession and a passion, has pursued costume design ever since.
“I just stumbled upon it, and then I just kept taking internships and assisting — but graduate school hands down helped me tremendously in terms of connection and having that safe space … to make mistakes and to discover my voice,” Hill said in an interview with The Daily Californian.
Since graduating, Hill has designed for numerous projects, including world premieres of plays and musicals produced at major venues such as The Public Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons and The Geffen Playhouse. In 2023, Hill received a Tony nomination for Best Costume Design of a Play for her work in “Fat Ham.”
In a full circle moment, Hill is now a costume design lecturer at UC Berkeley, sharing with students in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) her insightful approach to her artistry. Each semester, she also designs for the department’s in-house production.
“Right now with my class, we are actually addressing the unseen part that people do not really know that is happening, but I think is very crucial in terms of development for costume design,” she shared. “It’s what I like to call the bones of the world, like breaking down the script.”
Having a vivid imagination is essential to excelling at costume design, including asking questions like, “What does their journal look like?”, “What was their childhood like?”, and “Who do they wish to become?”
“To start any costume design, you have to have a lot of sympathy, a lot of empathy and a bit of knowing psychologically, where these characters are in their headspace, in order to break down what they look like,” the costume designer said.
This intricate creative process can be seen through the TDPS’ “Wintertime,” Hill’s most recent work for the department’s in-house production. Set in a country house during the holiday season, the play follows four sets of couples as they navigate complex experiences, aspirations and emotions. Hill needed to communicate these themes through intentional costuming decisions, helping audiences understand the relationship between Jonathan and Ariel, one of the production’s main couples.
“The script doesn’t say that they’re a couple and couples tend to feed off of each other energetically, but I’m using my cognitive reasoning and a bit of psychology to know if you’re inhabiting space with another person for a long period of time, you’re going to pick up certain angles of how they dress,” said Hill.
To accomplish this feat in a hip yet refreshing way, Hill put both characters in vests.
“I had this backstory that was not written in the script, but I kind of made it up that Ariel dressed Jonathan, and he probably put on a coat that morning and she was just like, ‘You know what, you’ll be cooler if you put on this vest,’” Hill said. “Both of them are very earthy in terms of color palette, so very cool clothes, very warm browns — things that signify cozy and warm, but also sleek and elegant.”
Besides incorporating their own original interpretations of characters and storylines, having a signature can also set a costume designer’s work apart.
“So every fashion designer has their own signature — you can tell McQueen’s clothing from something from Ann Taylor,” said Hill. “It’s a signature staple, which over time, you discover what you like and you hold onto that … And then you look at your body of work … After some time, you can kind of see the echoes.”
Hill also referenced costume designer Colleen Atwood, who designed classics such as “Alice in Wonderland” and the recent hit “Wednesday” to drive home her point.
“They design very dark and very grim,” Hill said. “So anytime that I see Colleen Atwood’s work, I know that is her because she has that aesthetic.”
For Hill, her signature is piecing things together, sort of like a collage.
“I love fantastical things … I love the challenge … Futuristic Afrofuturism to sum it up,” Hill shared. “I think my aesthetic is just finding the beauty in the leftovers and creating a whole new world out of that.”