Sophie Oprisanu with a friend (right). Photo/Courtesy
By Mwikali Lati
A clothing rack stands on one side of the room with notes pinned on the clothes, on the other side is a desk covered with notebooks and a notice board; this is wardrobe stylist and costume designer Sophie Oprisanu’s office.
“I have a passion for fashion, I like dressing up and shopping. I like the idea that anyone can be dressed to look like an executive or a beggar on the street, it’s always fun when I get to see the final product on TV,” she said.
After High School, Ms Oprisanu enrolled at the Evelyn College of Design in Nairobi. A short while later her father advised her to follow in his footsteps in the medical field.
So she joined Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) and studied Orthopaedic Technology but found time to continue studying fashion.
When she graduated from KMTC and was posted to Msambweni at the Coast, it took only a year for Ms Oprisanu to quit. She went back to Nairobi to complete her course in fashion design.
She started making clothes mainly for friends and family. Her friend Gilliane Obaso, who was then a make-up artiste, introduced Ms Oprisanu to Baraka Films and encouraged her to try her hand at wardrobe styling.
She was trained in wardrobe styling at the firm which produced the first two successful local movies in the late 90s; Dangerous Affairs and The Games We Play.
In 2000 she did a three-month apprenticeship with a Japanese movie — Africa Pole Pole. The film gave her the break she needed to get into film and TV.
Ms Oprisanu still worked with Baraka Films on different projects and her colleagues recommended her to firms in need of a wardrobe stylist.
“Every project has been a learning experience since I get to work with different costume designers from across the world and all of them have different ways of working, which is an added advantage for me,” she said. Last year she took a one-week wardrobe stylist course at the Wardrobe Academy in Cape Town.
“Styling for film and TV follows the director’s treatment. In media styling usually goes by a person’s preference and my advice. I consider the right colours, skin tone and camera friendly colours and patterns,” she said.
Since dressing up and one’s style are often personal, she said that it is not easy to please clients all the time.
Sometimes she has to convince cast members that an outfit looks good on them in relation to the character they represent, even though it may not be their usual style of dressing.
Which gender is harder to dress up? “I wouldn’t say gender, I think it’s more of the different shapes of people. Some have the ‘perfect’ shape fashionwise while others have to dress up to cover faults.”
Once she bags an assignment, Ms Oprisanu checks out the script and director’s treatment of the wardrobe and creates a “costume bible”.
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