Diana Cilliers
- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Diana's fascination with costume design led to her completion of a Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in Costume and Set Design. Paintings and the art world is often her inspiration for film characters and she has taken this passion further with a Master of Fine Arts, the subject of her thesis being "The Emotional Language of Clothing".
Early in her career she worked in theatre for 5 years under accomplished international costume designers like Peter Cazalet, Bruno Santini, Raymond Schoop and many others on opera, drama and ballet productions.
From there, the Film Industry was a natural progression for Diana. Over the years she has created costumes for over a hundred feature films as well as numerous television series and many commercials. Her experience with film established her love for period costume and her intimate knowledge of historical clothing is an invaluable support for directors and actors in creating their characters. For her the challenge continues to find the inseparable intimacy between a character and the way a character would select their apparel and choose to appear in the world. In essence, she employs the medium of costume to create characters to enrich and enhance a given narrative - always taking care never to allow the costume to intrude on the collaborative effort required between all the elements of film making. In short, for her, the successful costume has to remain in service of the character and narrative. She has achieved this over a broad range of genres: historical, period, futuristic, contemporary, fantasy and wherever the magic of cinema may want to go. Her work demonstrates the power of costume as a subtle, yet dynamic and convincing, contribution to support, enhance and compliment the work of directors, cast and crew in bringing a narrative to life. She engages in all her projects collaboratively and highly regards the team effort required in the process of film making.
She has been nominated for Best Costume Design as Costume Designer twice for an EMMY AWARD in 2013 and 2016, for a Danish ROBERTS AWARD in 2015, a Canadian GEMINI AWARD 2004, WOMENS INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION AND FILM SHOWCASE AWARD 2013 and several SAFTA/ GOLDEN HORN WINS AND NOMINATIONS between 2004 and 2017.
Diana started and owns Theatre and Film Costume Workshop (Pty) Ltd, a comprehensive costume rental and manufacturing company, which she started in Johannesburg in 1985 and relocated to Cape Town in 1992. This studio is located in the artistic hub of Cape Town where a variety of talented artisans and crafts people join forces to create the costumes and characters for their films.
Early in her career she worked in theatre for 5 years under accomplished international costume designers like Peter Cazalet, Bruno Santini, Raymond Schoop and many others on opera, drama and ballet productions.
From there, the Film Industry was a natural progression for Diana. Over the years she has created costumes for over a hundred feature films as well as numerous television series and many commercials. Her experience with film established her love for period costume and her intimate knowledge of historical clothing is an invaluable support for directors and actors in creating their characters. For her the challenge continues to find the inseparable intimacy between a character and the way a character would select their apparel and choose to appear in the world. In essence, she employs the medium of costume to create characters to enrich and enhance a given narrative - always taking care never to allow the costume to intrude on the collaborative effort required between all the elements of film making. In short, for her, the successful costume has to remain in service of the character and narrative. She has achieved this over a broad range of genres: historical, period, futuristic, contemporary, fantasy and wherever the magic of cinema may want to go. Her work demonstrates the power of costume as a subtle, yet dynamic and convincing, contribution to support, enhance and compliment the work of directors, cast and crew in bringing a narrative to life. She engages in all her projects collaboratively and highly regards the team effort required in the process of film making.
She has been nominated for Best Costume Design as Costume Designer twice for an EMMY AWARD in 2013 and 2016, for a Danish ROBERTS AWARD in 2015, a Canadian GEMINI AWARD 2004, WOMENS INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION AND FILM SHOWCASE AWARD 2013 and several SAFTA/ GOLDEN HORN WINS AND NOMINATIONS between 2004 and 2017.
Diana started and owns Theatre and Film Costume Workshop (Pty) Ltd, a comprehensive costume rental and manufacturing company, which she started in Johannesburg in 1985 and relocated to Cape Town in 1992. This studio is located in the artistic hub of Cape Town where a variety of talented artisans and crafts people join forces to create the costumes and characters for their films.
