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#WeAreCreatives Student Spotlight: Samantha Hodson

Discover and celebrate the work of the School of Art & Design's graduating students.

Samantha Hodson's costumes designs. They are oversized and exaggerated in pinks and greens
Samantha Hodson BA (Hons) Costume Design and Making

We Are Creatives Student spotlight

Samantha Hodson BA (Hons) Costume Design and Making

My work

My final year project is an immersive theatre production of the Netflix original, The Good Place. The themes for this are dreams and nightmares and it is set 100 years in the future, looking at futurist human evolution. I took a lot of inspiration from research I conducted on children’s dreams where I asked primary school children to draw their most recent dreams. I also conducted lots of research on what people thought humans might look like in the future and this resulted in some unusual and exaggerated ideas that helped create my overall unconventional designs. I constructed two of these costumes which were both made from unusual fabrics. One being knitted which required great ambition as I taught myself to knit, even joining the knitting society! The other created from Duvets which relied on determination and perseverance.

Samantha Hodson's costume designs
Samantha Hodson BA (Hons) Costume Design and Making

My time at NTU

I have enjoyed most the facilities and opportunities given to us at NTU. Every week we have industry Fridays. Guest speakers talk about their work and processes and answer any questions we have. These have ranged from Ane Crabtree, costume designer for The Handmaid’s Tale to set and costume designer Lez Brotherston. The variety of facilities at NTU has helped encourage me to be experimental with my creative process. Facilities I have enjoyed most are the Dye room as well as the workshop in Waverly where I learnt to work with new materials such as worbla and varaform.

Saying yes to every opportunity has boosted my confidence and given me the skills and knowledge I need for the costume industry. In my first year I was a part of a team of Prague Quadrennial Ambassadors for the UK at Nottingham Trent University where I helped design the installation for the exhibition which I visited with my course in June 2019. In my second year I was involved with different exciting opportunities with Leicester Curve Theatre. These ranged from dressing for the production of West Side Story to later designing for the postponed show, DNA.

My future

Following graduation, I want to continue to pursue a career in costume design. In 2019 I completed a work placement with Dance4. Here I collaborated with choreographer Theo Clinkard to design, source, construct and fit costumes to the youth cast. This five-day placement challenged me to turn shirts into skirts and shorts, and rain macs into trousers. This exciting and invaluable experience inspired me to further explore experimental dance costumes with my first job this summer being with dance company Landance, my role being costume creator. I look forward to using what I have learnt over my three years at NTU whilst in the costume industry.

We Are:

We Are Experimental

Published on 25 June 2021
  • Subject area: Art and design
  • Category: Student Showcase; School of Art & Design