by Mary Staub — Jun 27, 2008
Photo by Naoko Nagato
Naoko Nagato entered the
world of costumes and dance fully by chance ten years ago when her
sister-in-law needed a last-minute costume designer. At the time, Nagato worked
in the pharmaceutical industry translating documents and laboring in labs. She
had designed some of her own clothes, even made doll dresses as a child in Japan Manhattan
What happened was a review
in The New York Times that commended her creations. Soon thereafter, Nagato’s
phone started ringing with costume queries from others, and within just three
years she quit her job in pharmaceuticals to focus fully on costumes.
Initially, the hardest component of her new creative career was asking for
money. “At first I didn’t think what I made was worthy of others, just good for
myself,” Nagato said with a laugh. “To one client I said an amount of money
that I thought was fine for the work, and they gave me double.”
Though chemistry may seem
far removed from costuming, Nagato sees at least one clear connection. “Both
places you have to believe somehow that what you envision is going to work,”
she said. “With costumes you know what you want it to look like, and then you
try to make it work. In chemistry you believe there’s a treasure in the liquid,
and you must find out whether it’s true.”
Photo by Naoko Nagato
When Nagato watches dancers
during rehearsal, the movement and meaning of the piece paint images in her
mind of what fabric, shape or shade of color ought to adorn them. This past
March she worked with the Zimbabwean choreographer Nora Chipaumire in New York African-American
street Zimbabwe
“When Nora was rehearsing I
knew I wanted to see one of her legs – I wanted to see skin – but I knew the
other leg should be in a regular pant,” Nagato explained. “I wanted something
like the big hooded jackets you see on the street but not store-bought from Gap
because that wouldn’t be Nora. I wanted one sleeve longer, the back open, the
hood very styled; it had to say ‘Nora’.”
The key to any successful
collaboration, Nagato claims, is communication: she includes her clients
throughout the course of creation by deciphering the choreographers’ often
seemingly conflicting verbal input and translates that into textile, tone and
shape. “The choreographer hires me because she doesn’t know what to do – she
knows she wants a purple look, but she doesn’t want purple,” Nagato said.
“They’ll say things like ‘stay away from an African image, but still it should
have an African image.”
After designing initial
drafts using a mannequin in her home, Nagato brings in the dancers themselves
for alterations and adjustments. This is one of the aspects she enjoys most.
“One inch here makes a dancer look good, one inch there makes her look bad,”
Nagato said. “I can tell when a dancer is becoming happier and happier with
what she wears and I love to see that. Dancers work so hard in rehearsal and
deserve to look good and feel good onstage.”
Nagato’s respect for and
admiration of dancers and choreographers resonates throughout her work and
words. The dance community, she says, where people are so determined to achieve
so much with so little is vastly different from her past work in biochemistry.
“The people are what make it so interesting,” Nagato said. “In the other
industry I didn’t have anyone I wanted to talk to for hours on end. There, we
work in the lab right next to each other, but nobody cares what happens beyond
those walls. In dance, communication is still as important as dancing and I’m
fascinated by how nicely, humanly, people grow up in this community.”
