Colleen Atwood

Colleen Atwood (born September 25, 1948) is an American costume designer.

Atwood has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design eleven times, winning three times; for the films Chicago in 2002, Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005, and Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Atwood has collaborated several times with directors Tim Burton, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme.

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 1970. 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.