Join us for a unique event designed to bring together film/media and textiles teachers to explore cross-disciplinary collaboration. Whether you're looking to integrate costume design into your film curriculum or bring cinematic storytelling into textiles, this event will offer practical insights, hands-on activities, and industry expertise to inspire your teaching. The day will include:
11:30: A behind-the-scenes look at a collaborative production between Varndean College’s Textiles and Creative Media departments
12:15: Parallel workshops: An introduction to costume for the screen for textiles teachers, and a workshop on costume design for low/no budget student productions for film & media teachers.
14:00: A Costume Design Careers Q&A - this session can also be booked separately, as part of our Career Spotlight Panel series. Our panellists will include award-winning costume designer Michelle May (see full bio below - film & TV work include Looted,The Duchess, The Cockfields, and commercial clients have included John Lewis, Ikea and Audi), London Screen Academy Head of Craft Nicola Teale and Costume Trainee Marwan Elouali (Blitz, Gladiator II, Project Hail Mary).
15:15: A practical cross-discipline exercise
This event will now take place online via google meet. Places are free and open to film & media and textiles/art and design teachers.
Contributors:
Michelle May is an award winning Costume Designer with over 25 years experience working in commercials, television and film.
After graduating from Wimbledon School of Art in Costume Design in 1994, Michelle began her costume career as assistant costume designer in ballet, opera then moving into TV, working on various productions moving into commercials where she has worked successfully for a number of years. She has twice won the coveted Craft Award for Best Costume, in 2016 for her work on the IKEA Wonderful Everyday commercial directed by Gary Freedman at Independent. Her first Craft Award win was in 2010 for her designs on the ‘Always A Woman’ John Lewis commercial directed by Dougal Wilson at Blink.
Michelle’s features experience includes The Owners and Looted, and her television work includes Netflix’s The Duchess with Katherine Ryan, and The Cockfields (Season 2). Michelle’s commercial portfolio includes a huge number of high profile commercial campaigns with world-renowned brands including John Lewis, Ikea, Heineken, Kronenburg, Audi and Nike.