Costume Designers

Here is how this works in practice. We supply costume designers who build the wardrobe for Austrian shoots, from period features to modern commercials. Our costume designers research and design looks, manage fittings, source and rent from Vienna's wardrobe houses, watch makers and breakdown artists, and run the costume department through prep and shoot. We brief them on your script, period and budget, then confirm openings against your schedule.

Here is the short of it. Austria's strength in historical costume is a genuine production asset. Vienna's theatrical and operatic wardrobe stock, built up over generations, gives designers access to real period pieces. Our costume designers work fluently in English and German. We contract under the Kollektivvertrag terms set by the Fachverband der Film- und Musikwirtschaft within the WKO.

We set up the costume designer with the production designer, makeup artist and director so wardrobe, hair and make-up read always on camera and arrive ready for each shoot day.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. Austria's costume craft is rooted in the Habsburg legacy and a living theatrical culture. The imperial court at the Hofburg and Schoenbrunn set centuries of dress codes that period shoots still draw on. Vienna's opera and theatre houses — above all the Wiener Staatsoper — keep vast costume workshops and archives that supply film shoots.

Here is the breakdown. Global period films have repeatedly come to Austria for exactly this depth: 'Woman in Gold' recreated turn-of-the-century Vienna, 'A Dangerous Method' dressed the Freudian era, and 'The Sound of Music' built its alpine wardrobe in and around Salzburg. Beyond the screen, Austria's regional Tracht — classic alpine dress such as the dirndl and lederhosen — gives costume designers a real vocabulary for stories set in the mountains.

The Filmakademie Wien trains designers in this heritage. Their work is recognised each year at the Oesterreichischer Filmpreis and the Diagonale in Graz.