Liz Mitchell: on costume designing Gloss...

Interview – 2008

Before launching her own clothing label, designer Liz Mitchell began her career creating costumes for stage and screen — including Front Lawn classic Walkshort, and cult movie Angel Mine. Her dream screen gig was 1980s glamour soap Gloss.

In this ScreenTalk, Mitchell talks about:

Starting out at TVNZ and working on 1986 drama series Seekers, starring Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Temuera Morrison
The 'fantastic' experience of working on Gloss over three seasons
How the fashion industry pitched in to help
Designing the "over-the-top" costumes for the series, complete with shoulder pads and loud prints
Participating in the Benson & Hedges Fashion Awards — both behind the scenes, and on the awards podium
Celebrating the legend of Gloss at a 20th anniversary party for the show

This video was first uploaded on 24 October 2008, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

I think because we were costume designers, the whole fashion industry were very open to being involved. So we had that wonderful thing of being able to go to different companies; we were able to borrow things for different characters, and nobody saw you as a threat . . . it really gave me an introduction to lots of people that I work with now.
– Liz Mitchell on sourcing costumes for TV series, Gloss

Liz's Full Profile