Inside the Costume Designers Guild Awards With Billie Eilish and Lily Gladstone

Calls for pay equity continued at the 26th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards (CDGA), held on Wednesday, Feb. 21 at NeueHouse Hollywood and hosted by Wendi McLendon-Covey. Winners were announced in nine categories, including a new one for excellence in costume illustration. Also new this year was recognition of the primary assistant costume designer, who received an award alongside the head costume designer in each category.

The show marked the debut of the Vanguard Spotlight Award to celebrate an influential performance artist, underlining the breadth of costume design beyond film and television. Costume designer-stylist Shirley Kurata, who styled Billie Eilish‘s music video for the Oscar-nominated Barbie song “What Was I Made For?,” presented the award, emphasizing Eilish’s fashion focus on sustainability, individuality and a vegan lifestyle.

“I don’t think people necessarily realize that those artists need costume designers for their music videos and performances; we have members who have worked with Beyonce and Taylor Swift,” Costume Designers Guild vice president Ivy Thaide told THR. “It’s incredible to honor the artists and also showcase our members’ work, so it’s a great partnership.”

Wearing a Gucci ensemble to accept her award, Eilish thanked everyone from “my friend Nick from middle school who always wore really cool pants” to her mother. “I was sitting here with my mom and we were talking about how the best part of the movies is the costumes and that’s you guys. Fashion has always been my way of expression,” said Eilish. “I grew up loving dress-up more than anything. My mom was a Groundling and she had all the costumes in our attic and I used to go up there and try everything on all the time. That was my favorite thing in the world. Ever since I can remember, fashion is the thing that I care about the most. Honestly, above all else. Maybe I should care about other things more, but I don’t!”

The evening’s presenters included Lily Gladstone, Shangela, Cheyenne Jackson, RJ Cyler, Olivia Thirlby and Sherry Cola.

Gladstone — wearing a custom Valentino design by Pierpaolo Piccioli — took the opportunity to express appreciation for Killers of the Flower Moon costume designer Jacqueline West (CDGA nominated for excellence in period film) and Osage wardrobe consultant Julie O’Keefe. “Every article of clothing that I wore, every blanket that I held, every Wabonka pin, every moccasin, all of it was steeped in tradition and conveyed deep cultural significance which really helped represent who Molly was,” said Gladstone. “It informed me how I was to approach all of the scenes that were to come. You could feel the regality and the absolute grace of an Osage woman wearing these clothes. The level of immersion that it takes to find that truth is only possible with the skill and dedication of costume designers like the ones who are in this room tonight.”

Referring to “Queen Francine,” The Color Purple best supporting actress Oscar nominee Danielle Brooks presented the career achievement award to Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, recognizing her three decades of work. Brooks most recently designed costumes for the new The Color Purple directed by Blitz Bazawule and also worked as a costume supervisor on Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of the Alice Walker novel; other films on her resumé include White Men Can’t Jump, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Courage Under Fire and One Night in Miami. 

Continuing a trend of past shows, pay equity was a key theme of the evening, “I think, as costume designers, we were taught not to talk about our salaries, and just by the fact that we’re talking about our salaries, we’ve seen our rates go up, so I think that’s progress,” costume designer and former Costume Designers Guild president Salvador Perez told THR. “But I think it’s  really not about even the rates. It’s about the respect that we deserve as storytellers. Production designers are mostly men. They get paid more than we do. They deal with sets and chairs. The chair doesn’t talk back. The chair doesn’t have an opinion. We’re creating the characters, but we’re treated like the help. So at a certain point, you have to realize our value. And we’re going to keep reminding them of our value until they realize it.”

The Costume Designers Guild counts an 87 percent female membership and costume designers are paid “nearly 30 percent less per week than other majority male creative department heads and often less than the assistants of those same positions,” according to a handout from the Guild’s Pay Equity Committee. Contract negotiations are set to begin on March 4, while current terms expire at the end of July.

B. Åkerlund, winner of the excellence in short form award for the short film The Enlightenment created with her long-time client Madonna for a Vanity Fair photo shoot, wore Dominique Renée drop earrings emblazoned with the “Pay Equity Now” slogan and a voluminous fuchsia and black gown by Dawid Tomaszewski in the colors of the campaign. Other guild members followed suit, wearing the colors and mottos of the movement that advocates for fair pay.

“The time is now to achieve pay equity in our negotiations with the AMPTP,” costume designer Daniel Selon, a co-chair of the Pay Equity Committee of the Costume Designers Guild, IATSE, Local 892, told THR. He was handing out limited-edition Pay Equity Now pins, specially designed for members to wear in solidarity at the CDGAs, and donned a fuchsia tailored suit of his own design that spelled out “Pay Equity Now” on the back and on ribbon fringe on the sleeves, which were also printed with the phrase #NakedWithoutUs.

“It gets worse every single year, because the living increases are flat across all the locals, so three percent adds a bigger gap every year. We keep losing ground, so that’s why we need to change things now,” added costume designer Whitney Anne Adams, twinning with Selon in a fuchsia suit of her own design and a Pay Equity Now ribbon tie.

Annette Bening was the recipient of the evening’s spotlight award but was unable to attend as she was sick with COVID, so her honor was jointly accepted by costume designers Albert Wolsky (Bugsy) and Kelli Jones (Nyad). In a written statement that drew applause, Bening relayed, “As IATSE goes to the bargaining table later this year, we are here for you. Because when it comes to costume design, it’s not just about finding the right dress for a character, It’s about having the strength of character to address the issues that ensure the ability to live one’s life as a creative professional.”

Wearing a black gown by The Vampire’s Wife, Poor Things costume designer Holly Waddington, winner for excellence in period film, told THR: “It’s such an honor to win this, as the fellow nominees in my category were so brilliant. I find that montage of work up on the screen really inspiring. It makes me feel very goose bumpy about being a costume designer!”

Also recognized with costume design honors at the 26th CDGAs were Saltburn‘s Sophie Canale; Barbie‘s Jacqueline Durran; Beef‘s Helen Huang, Austin Wittick and YJ Hwang; The Great‘s Sharon Long; Ahsoka‘s Shawna Trpcic and Elissa Alcala; A Black Lady Sketch Show‘s Michelle Page Collins and Wyandon Lubom; and Jason Pastrana for costume illustration for Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire. (To see the full list of nominees and winners, click here.)

Costume designer Janty Yates, a nominee for excellence in period film for her work on Napoleon, told THR: “Tonight is the most exciting night of my life; the next exciting night will be the Oscars,” adding that she designed her lavender silk dress with matching marabou feather trim on the sleeves. “The people here are all my people, and I’m so happy to be working alongside them and to be able to congratulate everybody.”