Colleen Atwood

Colleen Atwood (born September 25, 1948) is an American costume designer. In a career spanning over four decades, she is recognized for her prolific work across film and television. She has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two Emmy Awards.

Atwood gained prominence for her frequent collaborations with directors Jonathan Demme, Tim Burton, and Rob Marshall. She has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design twelve times, winning four awards for Chicago (2002), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016); the latter is the first Wizarding World film to win an Academy Award.

Early life and education
Born in Yakima, Washington, she studied painting at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington in the early 1970s, and later worked in retail at various places, including the Yves St. Laurent boutique at Frederick & Nelson department store in the city.

Career
Atwood began her career as a fashion advisor in Washington in the early 1970s. She moved to New York in 1980, where she studied art at New York University. Her movie career started after a chance encounter with someone whose mother was designing the sets for the film Ragtime, and she got the job of a PA (production assistant) in the film. She worked as an assistant to a costume designer and eventually earned her first film credit for A Little Sex, directed by Bruce Paltrow.



Eventually Atwood ventured into the world of costume design for theater and film, initially coming to fame through her work on Sting's Bring On the Night World Tour, also made into a documentary by the same name. An important turning point in her career came when, through production designer Bo Welch with whom she had worked in Joe Versus the Volcano, she met director Tim Burton. Atwood and Burton worked together on over seven films in the next two decades, starting with Edward Scissorhands and including Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Big Fish, Planet of the Apes, and Sweeney Todd. She moved to Los Angeles in 1990.

Atwood has been partially involved in developing or has been the lead designer for producing the costumes on over 50 films to date. She was the lead costume designer for all the new costumes created for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 2005–2006. She also designed The Black Parade band uniforms for the band My Chemical Romance, as well as costumes for the following album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. She also designs for television, including Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl. Director Tim Burton brought on Atwood as the costume designer for the Netflix series Wednesday to design the looks for Gomez and Morticia Addams. The first thing she did was read the script. She started with Nevermore Academy and worked on the costumes for Wednesday Addams and Enid.

Atwood's favorite fashion designers include Azzedine Alaia, Yohji Yamamoto, and Alexander McQueen.

Major associations
Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

Emmy Awards

Other honors

 * Atwood was named a Disney Legend by the Walt Disney Company in 2024.