American New Wave 25: Erin Benach

Having been in the biz for about half a decade now, you’d think by Brooklyn based Costume Designer Erin Benach‘s film credits that she got her start because she was an owner of a thrift store. Beginning as an assistant costume designer on contempo indie dramas such as The Baxter (2005), Laurie Collyer’s Sherrybaby and Todd Field’s Little Children, it’s surely her couture work in Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson that would give Benach her first “big league” start. A chance at making Ryan Gosling’s prof in a downward spiral look like crap, would lead to matching socks and Triple-A uniforms for baseball drama Sugar.

I think it might be harder to identify talent on a film job that goes unnoticed especially if you’re not dealing with costumes from another époque, but I like how Benach puts it here in a Timeout NY interview, “I have to picture how these characters will look, think about their style and every single nuance. It’s a very fun, creative process.” This couldn’t be more true for Benach’s help in finding the proper head gear, stage gear, turtlenecks for Paul Giamatti in Sophie Barthes’ debut, Cold Souls, and in the second time she dressed Gosling (Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine), the actor got to look a lot less ghetto and more blue-collar. Benach’s last job was actually a “first” studio project in the Dowdle’s Bros. The Night Chronicles: Devil – which has an outside chance at receiving a Midnight Madness screening at TIFF this year.