DRESSING THE PART

Sopheak looked to other shows that have excelled in using used clothes and fashion to help tell their story. Within that vision, individual characters still have to portray their own uniqueness, and Sopheak likes to collaborate with the actors in terms of how they see their characters. For example, “certain characters, like Gabe, we wanted to draw from elements of street fashion…a look that was different to the rest of the family, who are more traditional,” Sopheak says.

Sopheak Seng knows a lot about fashion. He is a fashion editor, writer, stylist and image creator who has worked with New Zealand and international designers and brands, including Mandatory, Deryn Schmidt and L'Oréal, to name a few.

Sopheak’s costume designing career began with school productions in college, progressing through costuming for World of Wearable Arts, to his first theatre show, Neang Neak's Legacy, written by fellow Cambodian NZ artist and playwright Sarita Keo Kossamak So.

Sopheak has costumed several shows since then, and when he was approached to be part of Next to Normal he was intrigued to see what Hayden and other creatives he esteemed would bring to help tell this story in a new light.

Sopheak starts the process of design with the script and the director’s vision for the show which, for this production, was of a hyper-realistic world. Mood boarding then helped him to visualise the costuming direction for himself, and other creatives.

“Fashion is the armour to survive everyday life” says Bill Cunningham, and this quote inspired Sopheak’s designs for Next to Normal. Knowing that clothes can express feelings and capture important moments,

With his background in fashion, this production of Next to Normal is “definitely going to be almost a high fashion take on it” says Sopheak. “I think the fact that the show is contemporary plays to my strengths as I like to create looks that push a bit more what you would see on the street. Costuming something contemporary is also quite hard as you want to maintain the zeitgeist of the times while still creating something new and fresh that people can relate to.”

As well as helping to transport the audience into the world of make-believe, costuming can draw attention to a character in a particular scene and help tell the story without having to say what it is Sopheak says. For example, with Next to Normal, “we had to work out how to create ways to show progression of time and changes occurring for the characters using simple costume techniques.”

These costumes may look like high fashion, but there are additional practical considerations. “Costuming is more about logistics and understanding the body” Sopheak says, because the actors must be able to move, sing and act freely, change costume in mere seconds and, of course, enjoy wearing the clothes.

The cast of Next to Normal have the joy of costuming that not only helps them inhabit and portray their character, but of wearing beautiful, contemporary, creatively designed clothing with a distinctively unique fashion spin.