Sewing Dreams into Reality: Paige’s Role as a Costume Buyer at Disneyland
From a young age, Paige was always interested in fashion. She would watch the end credits of films to see who the costume designer was. As she grew up, Paige wanted to work in television or film doing costumes. After a trip to Disneyland when she was in college, Paige knew she wanted to work at Disney. Paige is fulfilling her dream of working with costumes as a Senior Costume Buyer at Disneyland Resort. She works with Operational and Entertainment costuming to help create the costumes guests see in the parks and resorts.
In her role, Paige is responsible for requesting lab dips, strike offs, and samples of any of the materials the designer would like to use for new projects around the resort. After the designer chooses a fabric, Paige orders bulk yardage for each project.
When she isn’t helping create new costumes, Paige assists with current costume production. Sometimes there’s a fabric or notion they’ve used for decades that is suddenly unavailable. Paige’s job is to redevelop that piece so they can continue to create those costumes. This process requires sending samples to vendors, creating new custom pieces, or finding one in stock that is similar to the original.
“It’s important to keep our costumes consistent – or sometimes even updating them to look better as the years go on,” said Paige.
Paige’s role is unique because there are so few fabric buyers or costume buyers in the world. At Disneyland Resort, there are only 3 members of the team that buy the new project garments and fabrics for all occupational costumes.
Crafting the perfect costume doesn’t come without its challenges. There is a great deal of care and attention to detail that goes into each costume whether it’s for an operational role or an entertainment offering. Sometimes they have hidden details that people might not see.
One of Paige’s favorite projects was helping bring Rey to the parks. Each piece of the costume took a lot of time and care to ensure her costume looked just like the Rey we see on the big screen.
“I think a lot of the time, guests and even other Cast Members don’t realize that everything down to the color of thread is meticulously chosen to make the guests experience what it is,” Paige said.
Although it is hard work to match fabric swatches to the designer’s vision, Paige loves the challenge of finding the perfect fabric and trim.
“I love when the designer’s eyes light up and they say, ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking about!!’,” said Paige.
The most rewarding part of the process is when the costumes and garments come to life. The most important thing for Paige is that the cast members feel comfortable in their costumes.
