The Costume Designers Guild, Local 892: Who It Represents and How to Join

Every costume on a Los Angeles film or television set starts with a designer, and most of the designers working in the city’s screen industry belong to one union: the Costume Designers Guild, Local 892 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. This guide explains what the guild is, who it covers, and how its own published rules describe the path to membership.

What the guild is

In its own words, the Costume Designers Guild is a union of professional costume designers, assistant costume designers and illustrators working in film, television, commercials and other media. The guild is direct about what it is not: it is not an employment agency but a labor union. As a member of IATSE, it protects members’ wages and working conditions through collective bargaining, and membership brings benefits that include health insurance and a pension. The guild describes a community of over 1,200 members.

The guild’s office is at 3919 West Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank.

How it began

The guild’s history page ties its founding to the end of the studio era. As the Hollywood studio system dissolved, in 1953, nine motion picture costume designers founded the guild, joining forces in response to the industry’s changing needs. It began as an independent organization that negotiated separate contracts for members who were either freelance designers or designers under contract to a studio. In 1976 it joined IATSE and became Local 892. The studio-era background is in Inside Golden Age Studio Wardrobe Departments: Designers, Costumers and the Studio Costume House, and the wider timeline is in A Short History of Hollywood Costume Design, Decade by Decade.

Designers, assistants and illustrators

The three membership classifications reflect three different jobs in a costume department.

• Costume designers create the look of the characters and lead the costume work on a production.
• Assistant costume designers, in the guild’s description, serve as an extension of the designer, a role that has become essential as productions have grown in scope and complexity. They help communicate the designer’s vision to the costume department, vendors and other departments through prep, shooting and wrap.
• Costume illustrators turn design ideas into drawings; the guild accepts recommendation letters for new illustrators from fields such as video games and fashion illustration.

The guild’s guide for assistants lists the work in detail: research, shopping, pulling looks for secondary characters, swatching fabrics, building schedules, setting up fittings, dressing background performers, establishing new costumes on set and overseeing shoppers. It adds that working as an assistant often leads to becoming a designer, but is also a career in itself.

Designers and costumers: two different unions

People new to the industry often confuse the guild with the Motion Picture Costumers, IATSE Local 705. The guild’s own FAQ draws the line. Local 705, it says, is a rostered union with a 30-day requirement; Local 892 is a non-rostered local, and 30 days on a union job is not needed to apply. In practice, Local 892 covers the people who design costumes, and Local 705 covers the costumers, cutters, tailors, dyers and other artisans who build, fit and maintain them. The costumers’ route in is described in Working in a Los Angeles Costume Department: Jobs, Rosters and the Paths Into Local 705, and the work itself in How a Film Costume Is Made: From Script Breakdown to the Last Fitting.

Joining as a costume designer

The guild’s application FAQ lists three routes for a costume designer applicant, any one of which qualifies:

Route	What the guild asks for
Production organized by IATSE	You were costume designer on a non-union production that was organized into a union production, with independent documentation of the credit from a deal memo, crew list or call sheet
Credit on a commercial release	Costume designer on at least one feature, television production, commercial or music video made for commercial release, with independent documentation, plus three signed letters of recommendation
Supervisor without a designer	As a Local 705 member, sole costume supervisor of both men’s and women’s costumes on a feature or television production that had no costume designer, with documentation and three signed letters

After the application and documents are accepted, the guild says an in-person interview may be conducted. It also notes that live entertainment such as theater and pageants is covered by other union locals, and that student projects are not acceptable credits.

Credits, letters and timing

• IMDb is not a qualifying independent credit. A call sheet, crew list or deal memo on a union or non-union project is the accepted proof.
• Recommendation letters must be signed and should come from people who could hire you: directors, line producers or costume designers for designer applicants. Letters from academics, deans or counselors are not eligible.
• An application is processed only when every required document is in. With everything provided, the guild says the process generally takes one week, and a rush can be requested if a job is about to start.
• Payment is not required upfront. An accepted applicant becomes an active member once payment is made, and quarterly dues fall on the first of January, April, July and October.

Where the guild’s work is seen

The guild’s history page reads like a list of its craft’s landmarks, from Travis Banton’s looks for Marlene Dietrich to Ruth E. Carter’s Black Panther, which the guild records as the first costume Oscar for a Black woman. The Academy’s side of that story is in The Academy Award for Costume Design: When It Began, Why There Were Two, and Milestones Since, and where to see film costumes in person is in Where to See Film Costumes in Los Angeles: Museums, Hours and What to Check First.