Designing and drafting costumes happens at the earliest stages of planning. The first step of this process is to create detailed, realistic drawings of the costumes as worn by the actors Once getting the approval of the director (or client), the costume designer must create patterns for the cloth pieces that she will sew together to make the costumes. She may draft these patterns from scratch, or alter existing, commercial patterns for items of a similar shape.
For most theatrical productions and film productions, the process of obtaining costumes involves collecting, renting and purchasing costume pieces as well as building them. The costume designer is in charge of most of the duties of collecting costume pieces by purchasing them from clothing stores and costume shops, renting them from shops and theaters and, in some cases, assisting the actors in obtaining their own costume pieces.
The costumer is responsible for making sure that all of the costumes fit the actors. Before drafting patterns and sewing costumes, she must take measurements of all the performers and use these measurements to create patterns for new costumes and obtain purchased and borrowed pieces that fit. During and after the process of building the costumes, she is responsible for fitting them to the actors, which involves supervising the actors as they try on the pieces and making adjustments as needed.
The process of sewing the costumes after drafting the patterns first involves purchasing fabrics for the costumes, then assembling the costumes with a sewing machine and hand-sewing processes as needed. Good costuming requires competent sewing skills and the ability to address and solve different problems with patterns and fabric as the occur. The end results should be comfortable for the actors to move in, look good from a distance and be sturdy enough to stand up to high degrees of physical stress.