Elegant. Hardcore. Nova. Juliann Wilding is a powerhouse all her own, exploding into the world of fashion through sheer determination. You might know her name from the popular FreeForm show ‘Shadowhunters’, where she worked as the Onset Costume Supervisor. We talked to her about Shadowhunters, how she made her world what she wanted it to be and why clothes for TV shows is so pricey!

When did you know you wanted be part of the fashion industry?

Clothing and fashion elevates us. However when I was a young girl my desire for this expression was truncated , as I grew up in a very poor family with no money for extras like cool clothing & shoes. I mostly had to wear my brother’s hand-me-down hockey jerseys, cargo pants , and basketball shoes -which at the time I hated. Peppered in there though , were these beautiful homemade dresses that my maternal grandmother would design, sew and send me in the mail , one for back to school and one for birthday. Those dresses were so special. I remember touching the embroidery around the hem in kindergarten & just being transported somewhere else. As soon I discovered thrift shops & sewing ,It was as if a door opened in my mind , I stepped through it and I was gone. It’s all I cared for.

“We were born into a world which requires us to wear at least something , so why not use this as a way to show the world who we are.”

I couldn’t believe a girl like me could have the world of fashion. Thrift shops were my encyclopedia & I was digging so deep. I started collecting vintage clothing & taught myself how to sew when I was 11 or 12 years old. I began to collect wild pieces & cut & paste looks together. My parents hated it , they still tried to control what I wore & how I looked , but I was too strong; Fashion was my rebellion. Junior high was really my unbridled phase , I dressed radically different from one day to the next , I was trying it all on. There was no internet or fast fashion at this time , just the power of my imagination & the passion of my rebellion.
I always had a strong idea of how I want to look & I have always seen clothing as the perfect forum through which to begin self expression. We were born into a world which requires us to wear at least something , so why not use this as a way to show the world who we are.

What got you started in wardrobe?

I was pushed towards an academic career and I was also led to believe that fashion was nothing more than vanity & that I should feel guilty and ashamed for my vanity , so it didn’t occur to me when I was very young that I could actually have a career doing what I loved. I had zero access , zero connections , and zero guidance. I have always loved to read & write. While I was at university studying Philosophy and English Literature , an older friend who wrote movie reviews for magazines encouraged me to write for the public and it occurred to me that I could write about fashion. I wrote a sample fashion column & pitched it to a local magazine & suddenly I was a fashion journalist with my own weekly column; I was barely 18 years old. Soon I was conceptualizing , styling and directing my own editorial fashion shoots & seeing them realized full size in newsprint. I teamed up with the best photographers I could find and would seek out models from the indie rock & punk scene , using a range of unconventional faces and body types. They were daring , provocative , & experimental. I was really flexing some strong creative muscles & stepping out. People loved my shoots and soon started asking me to design their music videos , their theatre productions and their short films- I said yes to everything. I was working so much I dropped out of University.

“I got 2 phone calls. The first was to tell me I did not get the job at The Walrus. The second was to tell me , I had won the sewing machine. I took it as a sign. The universe had answered my question.”

When I moved to Toronto I was still torn between academia and fashion. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was sick of being told fashion didn’t matter , that it was superficial , vain , nonsense. I remember this one day , I had an interview at The Walrus magazine and then later at a fabric store I entered a draw to win a very expensive sewing machine. A few days later I got 2 phone calls. The first was to tell me I did not get the job at The Walrus. The second was to tell me , I had won the sewing machine. I took it as a sign. The universe had answered my question.

It was a really hard , long and slow process to move into costume design as a full time practice. Nobody was helping me or telling me how to do anything. I had no money to further my education, I had to work many part time jobs. I had many periods of self doubt & confusion. I didn’t really know where I fit or how to get there but I had vision and I refused to give up. I worked on my friends shows , I worked on low budget indie shows , I pulled all-nighters in my studio doing crazy amounts of work alone , I made things for myself , I tried to make myself known. I read voraciously and watched movies obsessively. I taught myself everything about fashion and costume history , film , & design. Throughout all of this time I was refining and refining and refining my aesthetic , my taste level , my understanding. Eventually I was getting enough costume design work in film to quit all my other jobs. Eventually I found the support I needed to join the union & work on the big shows.

How did your first job compare to working on Shadowhunters?

I don’t even really know what was my first job. Probably I was making costumes out of garbage & never sleeping; But nothing could ever really compare to working on Shadowhunters. We became a family.

Shadowhunters was my first really big show that I was on for a long time. My job on Shadowhunters was Onset Costume Supervisor , also known as Set Key , Set Super or Velvet Hammer , among other names. Although I am a costume designer I was not the costume designer on Shadowhunters, (it’s a huge show with a 16 person costume department), the Costume Designer is a wonderful woman named Shelley Mansell and I am eternally grateful to her , not only for hiring me & wanting to keep me around but for everything that I’ve learned from her and how much she’s given me along the way; things she’s not even aware of.

In short , my job is to establish the styling as per the costume designer’s wishes , maintain and track the continuity of each wardrobe change on every character in the show , affect the wardrobe if necessary via breakdown or rigging for stunts or prosthetics , dress the actors and make sure they have everything they could ever want or need , both on camera and off, anticipate all of their future needs , liaise with other departments, teams,directors and producers to make sure the final image is what everyone wants it to be , and then be there every second to maintain all of this for every frame we shoot. Sometimes you have to figure things out on the fly , sometimes you have 10 minutes in the dark to rig a jacket for a prosthetic , sometimes you have to thread a needle at night outside while 10 men stand there watching you. It’s a very dynamic position that calls upon a lot of different skills I’ve accrued along the way. I get to be the final frontier , the last bastion of my department to lay their eyes on the wardrobe.

“Shadowhunters was a fantasy come true in so many ways…. Knowing how special the show was to so many people made me want to work even harder to make everything as good as it could possibly be.”

I also have to be very close to the actors , they have to be able to trust me completely. Shadowhunters was a fantasy come true in so many ways. It was amazing to suddenly be in this world where we could do whatever we wanted , with a huge department and so much support. The actors were all so wonderful and everyone cared so much. I learned so much about creating characters in a long form show. I felt supported , respected , that the skills I brought to the team were appreciated and necessary but ut mostly it was the people – the whole cast and crew , just a very special group of people. It was also the first show I’ve worked on that had such a wild and passionate fandom. Knowing how special the show was to so many people made me want to work even harder to make everything as good as it could possibly be. Knowing how many people were going to watch it and love it definitely gave it a lot of meaning. My understanding of what it is to be a costumer grew in leaps & bounds on that show. It will always stand out as a really special time in my life and a rare experience that I feel lucky to have been included in.

So yeah, nothing will ever really compare to working on Shadowhunters.

Do you draw sketches of the looks you want first or do you find items and base outfits around them-or is there another process entirely?

On Shadowhunters there are so many looks its impossible to illustrate each one , but iconic looks for important moments will be illustrated for sure. Sometimes an illustration is an approximation of what the designer wants to see and it might be changed slightly by what the buyers are able to find or what is available. There are also really specific and always evolving image boards for each character and when Shelley works with Angela Elter (the head sewer/cutter & an absolutely magical miracle worker) on custom looks , Angela will make illustrations.

When I am the costume designer or work on my own shows I don’t always do illustrations , but for a build I do make diagrams & lots of mathematical equations. I think my notes & sketches look more like something you’d expect from a mad scientist. I’ve always been great at geometry and maths, it gives me grace of heart to use as a jumping point for designing a piece. When directors ask for illustrations I will provide them , or when I have to show my projected designs to others. I’m very secretive about everything I do tho , so I would really only make illustrations if I’m asked to. It’s probably something I should do more regularly as it’s a great way to document different stages in a look but more often nowadays the director and I will share visual refs back and forth with notations until we land on the looks we like.

We get a lot of comments asking us why TV & Film use such expensive clothing brands and wondering if productions have to pay for the items. What can you tell us about that?

Particularly in a contemporary show like Shadowhunters where even though it’s fantasy , the characters exist in the real world. When the designer is building looks for the characters , if it’s not a custom build from scratch , they will send a team of buyers out into the world to find items that fit the vision & the brief. Usually shows do not have exclusivity deals with brands , although I’m sure that happens from time to time. More often than not the wardrobe production budget purchases all of the items you see.

Higher end & brand name pieces are chosen for a few reasons: Firstly , designers typically look for “character pieces” that are special. This was definitely the case on Shadowhunters because all of the characters are so specific and unique and their looks for certain moments become iconic. Higher end items tend to be more unique and beautiful and with more rich details than their knock-off fast fashion counterparts. If the show is meant to be current but we’re filming it at least 6 months before it airs, inexpensive fast fashion items would already look stale.

Secondly , high quality fabrication looks better on camera , has better fit details, is more robust & is usually more comfortable. Details really do matter. In a close up HD shot , poor quality anything stands out in sharp relief. Some items you can get away with lesser quality but some you cannot.

Thirdly when you need multiples of an item for stunts & gore , tracking down a high end item from a designer and ordering multiples is often easier than trying to find a fast fashion item that’s already gone and is relatively untrackable.

Fourthly there is a standard of quality that actors and productions have grown accustomed to , it’s just a part of the industry. Sometimes you’ll find a brand that just really fits a certain actor’s body & fits their character’s aesthetic as well. For example , Valentine (Alan Van Sprang) was just a good fit for [John] Varvatos jackets. Clary (Kat McNamara) fit G-Star jeans really well and a lot of G-Star’s more tech’d out utility jeans were perfect for her character and she could perform action in them.

So these reasons and certainly others are why you see high end clothing on film & TV.

How do you decide what you’re going to make alterations on, such as adding studs or altering necklines?

There is no formula or rule as to when something will be altered. Alterations are done as some combination of needing something to fit an actor differently and changing something according to the designers vision. So many of the clothing items on Shadowhunters are altered to better fit the actors. The way clothing fits in the real world isn’t always the same as what you want or need for TV. It’s always a collaborative decision making process with the designer , the actor and the head sewer as to what and how something will be changed. Sometimes its as simple as adding an elastic stirrup to a pant so it will stay inside a boot during stunts. Maybe it’s tweaking something so it suits the character better- Other times its a complete custom build. A lot of Magnus’s clothing was custom builds by Angela Elter.

Is there an item you created or re-vamped that you are particularity proud of?

This was not for Shadowhunters but, I’m extremely proud of a recreation I designed & built of a gown originally designed & made by the artist Loie Fuller in 1891. The gown was originally made for Le Danse Serpentine , you can see a video of the original here & you can see my design here. I was recreating it for a video installation piece by artist Jenn E. Norton. The build involved almost 40 yards of silk & was extremely rewarding. I worked on it in-between seasons 2 & 3 of Shadowhunters.

Was there an outfit that didn’t make the final cut of an episode that you hated to see go?

There were great items in each of the characters’ closets that didn’t make it to camera for a myriad of reasons. Basically everything that was in Lilith’s closet that didn’t get used was a damn shame because her closet was INCREDIBLE, I drooled over basically every look they put on her , and the actress Anna Hopkins looks incredible in everything and gives so much life to her wardrobe.

You also post a lot of cool personal/modeling shots on your media! Media is really trying to crack down on freedom of expression, especially for women, what would you say to those who feel they can no longer express themselves?

I would say , never stop sharing ! Never let rules created by others stifle your sense of self , in life or in media. It blows my mind that we still have to fight for this , that we still have to fight to have control over our own image of self. These measures of control are issued out of fear & desperation. People (men) are still so afraid of young women taking agency over their own bodies. This is our world ; we can’t let others’ fear squander our vision.

Describe your personal style for us! Where do your draw your inspiration for both your personal style and your work in wardrobe?

Elegant Hardcore.

I like to mix real dirty street with polished glamour. I’m a bit of a jock , a tomboy , a tough guy , but I’m also extremely feminine & love to play with sensuality. I like to mix items from the hardware store with discarded elements of sporting goods & then shove something really sexy & super femme into it. I’m hyper aware that I am a person who is going to be sexualized no matter what I do , so I prefer to sexualize myself , that way I control the image. It’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek , the way I dress. I like to play little games with what I hide and what I reveal , both literally and figuratively.
Being broke , being vulnerable , wanting to f*ck with people’s expectations. Living in a perpetual state of utter disappointment can make one extremely creative.

Where can people go to check out your work and follow your next projects?

I’m currently working on a website where I’ll have an online version of my portfolio. Until then, @juliann_wilding on instagram is the best place to reach me, see me, & learn about what I’m up to.