2021 Nobis Industry Icon Award
Glenne Campbell
Glenne Campbell, Costume Designer, Vancouver BC, has worked in theatre, special events, and motion picture in various international jurisdictions, with a variety of story lines and a range of costume presentations.
Glenne was inspired by the 1968 release of the movie “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (set in 1922 during the time of Women’s suffragette movements). The storyline and the costumes prescribed an attitude of self-learning to self fulfillment. And from there, Glenne put her hands towards costuming at every level and to every possible event requiring specialized clothing to complement the story being told. From costuming neighbourhood figure skaters, to Canadian theatre, to Calgary Winter Olympics, to International television and film production, she has participated in the costume process at every stage of costuming. Creating fabric, cutting and sewing, distressing, designing, department management, teaching and public relations have all been part of the process, always with an open mind to approaching each project with questions, experiments and solutions to exploring and expanding the costume team’s experience and knowledge. From contemporary to period to science fiction costuming, Glenne always looked at ways to change or improve the processes.
A foray into aircraft building, utilizing composite materials of fiberglass cloth, foam and resins became an opportunity for Glenne to create a costume she could fly in. With her partner, they toured North America barnstorming and competing in prestigious local flying club air shows. Always the winning Grand Champion entry, they gave many workshops on the new technologies they had incorporated into the aircraft, CGVEZ. Glenne always credited her experience in costuming a multitude of silhouettes with a variety of materials as her basis for taking the art to 10,000 feet in a futuristic aircraft. The 10,000 feet experience provided many lessons in engineering unusual requirements, navigating through difficult situations, and ensuring the team was safe and had the right tools and ability to perform to their best abilities.
Teams Glenne has worked with have been from Canada, USA, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Germany, Taiwan, Hawaii and Guam. The rewards of so many people of various backgrounds working together include the sharing of information and development of costuming as an art form. Highlights of Glenne’s costuming career include: creating costumes for a 1969 best friends future skating career, sewing thousands of buttonholes on men’s frock coats for The National Ballet’s 1972 presentation of The Sleeping Beauty featuring Rudolf Nureyev and Karen Kain, to 1987 co-leading a team of 2600 volunteers to make costumes for and dress 7000 performers for the 1988 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, to designing a dress for the 2007 People magazine utilizing the Sexiest Man of the Year issue, to experimenting with mixing of technologies for costumes for Battlestar Galactica, to living the dream of time travel to Glenne’s ancestral Scottish Highlands in Outlander.
Glenne sincerely appreciates the time and energy all costumers put into their work. She hopes everyone has a fun and varied career, which enriches their lives (and others) and understanding of this planet we call home.