1 week Ago By Qatar Tribune
Qatar tribune Tribune News Network Doha Qumra Master Anna Terrazas, an award-winning costume designer from Mexico, said that costumes “are like a second skin for the actors and help create characters” that are authentic. Terrazas, who has designed costumes for Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Sam Mendes among others, said costume designers have a huge responsibility.
“From a script we create characters and help actors become who they need to be,” she said. Sharing her journey from a small town near Mexico City to being part of some of Mexico’s seminal cinematic works, she urged emerging filmmakers to “always try to look for things that will give way to creating what they are looking for in their films. After studying art and design in London, she moved to New York to study fashion.
When she returned to Mexico, she found a mentor in a theatre costume designer. “That is when I discovered costume design; it taught me how to create a project from start to finish and to work in a team,” she added. Terrazas said collaborating with the director, cinematographer, production design and practically every member of the crew is important in order to “speak the same cinematic language and to deliver what we are trusted to deliver.
” A defining moment was working on The Deuce (2017), the American drama TV series created by David Simon and George Pelecanos. Set in New York City in the 1970s, the series, featured James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal. “I read the script and fell in love with it,” said Terrazas.
“I flew to Los Angeles with a crazy presentation and convinced the directors to give me the job.” What followed was painstaking research to recreate the era because “watching a film is creating real life, and you have to spend time considering colours, textures and every little aspect to bring the characters to life.” She would go on to work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Oscar-winning Roma (2018); Alejandro G.
Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) and with Rodrigo Prieto on the adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (2024). These films challenged Terrazas to demonstrate her ability to replicate costumes of bygone eras as well as to merge realism and imagination. On Roma, Terrazas said instead of sharing the script, Cuarón held a meeting where he told the story of the film over five hours.
The notes taken during that meeting and Cuarón’s personal family photos became the go-to resource for the entirecrew. The task was additionally monumental because it was shot in black and white. “The most beautiful thing happened,” said Terrazas.
“We learnt to see colour in black and white.” Terrazas representation of the various social classes through textures, colours and materials went on to define her work for Bardo. She recalled that more than 45 jackets were created for the protagonist Silverio (played by Daniel Giemenz Cacho) through painstaking research and last-minute modifications to ensure that every individual had the right-coloured costumes.
Copy 09/04/2025 10.
