When you're watching a series or a film, there are a number of elements that draw you in and provide additional context beyond the dialogue that is being spoken on the screen. Costume design is one that we're always watching as it adds that element of visual texture. We sat down with Costume Designer Allyson Fanger who has brought her creative approach to a number of series and films including Wild Things, 10 Things I Hate About You, 80 For Brady, Grace & Frankie, Shrinking, Apples Never Fall, and Mack & Rita to name a few. We wanted to know more about how she chose this field, how she got into the industry, iconic looks that really delve into and drive the story forward, and how she approaches these projects. ATHLEISURE MAG: I have been such a fan of your work and it’s such an honor to be able to talk with you! ALLYSON FANGER: Oh, thank you so much! AM: I have been a fan of your work since Wild Things and 10 Things That I Hate About You! I remember being in college and watching 10 Things That I Hate About You and just watching the images and how the characters were dressed and it really stuck with me! It was seared into my mind so personally, I have been a fan for awhile. AF: I love it! It’s having a moment! AM: Right? AF: It’s so great! AM: It’s really a testament to your approach to your work. As you’ve said, it’s still super relevant! I’m a fellow Midwesterner myself and I live in NY now. I’m always intrigued by how those of us who come from that area of the country and then we end up leaving to go to the East or the West Coast. I find it interesting. How did you get your start in
this industry? AF: Well, I mean, that’s a big question. I got a degree in Anthropology actually and I started getting into photography and visual media towards the end of college. I have always been a very live in the moment type of person in general. In school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and didn’t know that this was a career path that was possible to me. As you know, I lived and grew up in Minneapolis and went to college, then I came back after college, and I traveled a ton! I went to South East Asia, I went to India, Singapore, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia – you know I, did that whole South East Asia thing. That really was very formative I think in my interest in culture and society and people! The difference in people in different areas and cultures, socioeconomically, geographically, how they grew up in a certain area and how things defined them from a costume perspective – from a look perspective, I was really attuned to the different colors, especially in India! Like the beautiful pigmented colors that have to do with not only skin tone of the people in the area, but also the light. The way the light hits and what looks well and the way that they use pigmented dyes and plants to make their colors. All of those things were not lost on me and it was hugely formative to me on all of my work today. That is why I am able to find the various details and nuances in character and all of the elements that feed in to making a person, an individual full and defined and different and unique in their own way. Every single person is. When I was doing Anthropology and Social Anthropology, the study of people – so that kind of tied into that and I came back to Minneapolis, and I wondered what I was going to do. I started hanging out with a lot of artists in Minneapolis just because those were my people. I had this very good friend at the time whose name was Gus. He was a big commercial photographer in Minneapolis. I