WAR PAINT Costume Designer Catherine Zuber Discusses Her Process, Challenges, and More

Seasoned costume designer Catherine Zuber's latest project, War Paint, has her designing lavish pieces for Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. In an article with Vogue, the designer discusses her experiences and how she found a distinction between the looks for these two characters.

War Paint follows Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, played by LuPone and Ebersole respectively, two visionary women and professional rivals who helped create that modern beauty industry. The two women have signature looks that Zuber worked to differentiate between in her design process.

"Helena Rubinstein was so much more of an interesting person, visually," she says. "Patti LuPone was such a great collaborator. She was very clear about what she wanted, and she really loved having more, more, more jewelry-she was having so much fun with it!"

Zuber says that her challenge with Arden was "finding things...that could be different but just as powerful."

"It isn't a one-stop shopping venue anything," Zuber says of the designing process. She recalls her experiences on this show, rushing to book time with tailors and dressmakers, including Werner Kulovits who made the costumes for LuPone and Ebersole, and from whom Zuber says she has learned so much.

The more technical challenges, such as creating places for mic packs and streamlining the quickchange process, proved to be the less glamorous parts of Zuber's job. However, it is all worth it in the end for her.

"The costumes start to take the form of the person, and they look so much better. Fabric is like a living thing," she adds, "which starts to take on this relationship with its owner; clothing always looks better having been lived-in."

Read the full article here.