By Jamie Kim
Lisa Peters handles a sewing machine like someone who has sewn her entire life. As she runs a black-and-white flower print fabric through a whirring machine, she explains how her grandmother, an avid quilter, taught her how to handle a needle and thread about the same time she was learning to read and write.
"My grandmother had a quilting group that she met with on a weekly basis and when I was six or seven years old she would let me come along," she said. "When you’re making a quilt you stretch it out on these bars; I would sit underneath the quilt and when they would reach the middle part they couldn’t reach, they would push the needle down and I would push it up."
From then on, it was a long journey to her current position as the Upper School’s official costumer, a full-time job that entails creating wardrobes for theater and dance productions and teaching two sections of Introduction to Costume Design, as well as a directed study.
Peters began making costumes from when she was seven years old, starting with doll clothes, but eventually making her own.
"I say I made a costume. I probably, thinking back on it, took a sheet and wrapped it around my waist and called it an apron," she said with a big laugh. "My grandma helped me with the more elaborate ones. I think she was happy to have somebody who wanted her to sew for them."
Regardless, costumes became a serious hobby and a way to satisfy the creative bug within her. She said she was always drawn to the "storytelling aspect." Dressing up was not only for Halloween.
When senior year of high school rolled around, Peters only applied to one school: California Institute of the Arts. She started college as a graphic design major with the job market in mind, but realized that her passions lay elsewhere and soon switched to costume design. After graduating and then working for several small community theaters, she eventually landed her second job with a theme park, this time in the theme-park division at Universal Studios, where she designed employee uniforms.
"Somewhere in Osaka there’s a theme park employee walking around wearing something I designed, which is kind of cool," she said.
Peters moved to San Francisco for a few years to be with her current husband. There, she set up a company that took private costume requests.
"I got some really odd requests that I won’t mention," she said, laughing. "But it was interesting because the people I met who would come in, who seemed completely normal on the surface would make some of the weirdest requests." She added, "It’s very relevant to designing costumes for theater, though, because you might have an image in your head of a certain character and the costume you’re making for it to reflect that, but maybe that’s not at all what that person is like, maybe they’re hiding something."
Then, a new opportunity presented itself. When Peters learned that Harvard-Westlake was looking for a costumer, she recognized the school because she had worked very briefly at the Middle School right out of college in 1994. At that time, she had had no idea that she would return to the same school exactly ten years later.
"I remember when I was here before, at the Middle School, it was really cool that the kids were so enthusiastic about it," she said. "Sometimes when you work with professionals, they are people who love what they do, obviously, but you don’t feel like you’re learning something, or that you’re teaching something. They know what they want to do, and you’re dealing with a lot of egos and things. Young people, they’re very open-minded."
The campus is quiet outside the costume shop, but for Peters, it’s a busy afternoon getting ready for the fall musical "City of Angels". For about three weeks, she stays at school until rehearsal ends at 6 p.m.
The costumes are especially crucial for this play, which tells its story at times in black and white and at times in color.
"The set will basically stay the same. There are elements that are in color and there are elements that are in black and white, but it doesn’t really switch around. So to tell the story and know which character you’re seeing, it depends on what they’re wearing," she said.
"It’s turning out to be fun because it’s such a great period. The clothes are kind of pretty," she said.
Peters wishes everyone would use their hands more and "create things more."
"I think that people that are creative, people look at them and go, ‘Oh, you’re an artist, that’s why you’re creative," she said. "But you have to realize that everybody on this planet is creative in some way. You may not feel like we can all draw or we can all paint, but, if you can cook, you’re creative. If you can doodle, you’re creative, if you can play music, you’re creative. It’s so crucial that everybody that has that feeling lets it out in some way, because it makes the world an amazingly beautiful place."