18 Year Old Costume Designer Brings Disney Dresses To Life
Angela started sewing when she was just 14
Angela Clayton is a young and talented costume designer from Long Island, New York. The 18-year-old pursued her dream of costume design and she has already created several stunning Disney and medieval dresses. Clayton first turned to costume design three years ago when she was involved in cosplay and would frequently make her own outfits.
These days Clayton is seen to be at work on her latest masterpiece, which started in January but will end soon, according to her. She attends less cosplay functions and has diverted most of her energy into sewing original designs. Her dresses require at most 250 hours of handwork and she has even worked with 11 meters of fabric to bring one of her designs to life.
The young costume artist is sure that she wants to spend her career designing dresses for the runway and the set. In a recent interview she told, “I hope that there is a future career that I will get out of it. I love making costumes and I love bringing ideas to life. If I could do that for fashion, especially for theater or film, that would be awesome…I would rather go straight into that if I can instead of spending four years at school.”
Her knack for stitching together a dress plucked straight from the pages of a fairy tale or history book started when she was 14 years old and couldn’t afford to buy costumes online. Her solution was ingenious - she would make her own costumes. Her closet now holds famous dresses from fairytales such as Brave, Frozen, Cinderella as well gowns from the medieval period.
“The first thing I really finished was a school uniform from an anime show when I was 14. It took me about two months”
“I was into cosplay, making costumes or wearing costumes to conventions, and I couldn’t afford the costumes that were available online”
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll make mine! That will be great and easy!’ It really wasn’t but I really enjoyed it”
“I have one that I’ve been working on since January and I’m still not done with it, but I hopefully will be finishing it soon”
“I continued making the costumes because I enjoyed the sewing aspect of it”
“I decided to just give myself more freedom for focusing on historical projects and original design”
“If you practice, you can definitely do it. It might take you a while”
“It comes naturally to some people but it is definitely something you can learn how to do”
“I really enjoy doing it. I love making costumes and I love bringing ideas to life”
