By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
Tsigie (pronounced suh-gay) White doesn’t just design costumes for hit television shows; she creates a new persona for the actors who wear them.
“That’s always my goal. To make my costumes feel natural and realistic and lived in and for actors to put on their costume and transform into that character,” said White, who was in the Magic City recently to visit her mother, Brenda Lewis, wife of Birmingham Times founder Jessie J. Lewis Sr.
White is costume designer of STARZ television series, “Power Book III: Raising Kanan”.
“This was my first opportunity to be a head designer,” White said. … “’Raising Kanan’ is a period piece. My design was heavily geared with research. In order to keep it super authentic and realistic it was important that I did research.
Working on costumes for “Raising Kanan”, currently in its fifth and final season, White brings a fresh blend of ’90s hip hop nostalgia with a refreshingly modern perspective because she is allowed to bring her own creativity to the show, she said.
“It helped that I lived [that time] too so I can remember those small cultural nuances that we know that also helped the audience remember,” she said. “I had a lot of creative freedom and that allowed me to bring my best because I didn’t have to worry. I could just be me as a creative.”
But White, 48, didn’t always have that freedom. Being a Black woman in the media industry meant challenges, she said.
“I feel like it’s took me a very long time to get to this point in my career and I believe that if I were not a Black woman, I would have gotten here a lot sooner,” she said. “With that I think that the road that I was on really prepared me to be able to execute at a super high level. I might not have been ready if I were younger to produce the kind of work that I do … When I was younger, I was so desperate to break in that I let a lot of micro aggressions go past. It wouldn’t happen today, but those were some challenges for me.”
If she had to talk to her younger self “I would probably do the same thing, but I would say, ‘you have to be strong and know who you are, you never lose your identity,’” she said.
“East Coast Girl”
Originally from Cambridge, Massachusetts, White attended Spelman College in Atlanta where she studied theater. “I thought I wanted to be a theater director,” she said.
“My then boyfriend who became my husband, finished college and asked where we wanted to move. I was debating between New York and California because that’s where you sort of move to if you were to break into business. I’m an East Coast girl … I chose New York because I’m from Boston. I’ll know how to maneuver, how to get around … we moved to New York, and once I got there, I realize New York is like no other place on the planet. You can be from the North, but once you’re from New York, you don’t understand.”
A week before White moved to the Big Apple, she ran into a family friend at her going away party.
“My aunt had a party for me, and I met this woman named Anissa Carter. She worked in the [entertainment] business more on the production side. She did music videos and commercials.
“I was telling her how I wanted to get into the business, but I had no idea what I wanted, and she gave me some names of some Black female producers that lived in New York and told me to give them a call. I get to New York; I give myself two weeks to kind of get acclimated. I make the phone calls, and no one calls me back.”
White, 48, said she struggled to find work. “I didn’t know how to look for a job.”
White said she even started second guessing her decision to move.
“I’m like, what have I done? This is the biggest mistake. I was in tears. I was crying and my phone rang. It was a Thursday; I’ll never forget it. It was Anissa Carter, and she said that she was going to be in town that Monday to do a music video and asked if I would like to do a music video?”
White recalled what that first day on set.
“It was the middle of the summer, I had on flip flops, and I had on a tank top and jeans because I was used to living in Atlanta. I show up and she’s like, ‘are you sure you want to wear sandals’ and I’m like ‘yeah, these are comfortable. I’m going to be fine.’ I worked for 24 hours straight, and the bottoms of my feet were black, and I loved every minute of it.”
“Put In The Work”
That one job set the pace for White’s career. She continued to connect and embrace the entertainment industry.
“On that job, I met a woman named Susan Lynn and she was the set director and production designer, and I just start chatting her up. I liked what she did. It felt more creative. She was responsible for shopping on the set. The next project she got she called me up and she hired me, and I did that for a couple of months. It was like I would meet this person and then they introduce me to another person.”
Her connections led her to work with renowned movie director, Spike Lee, she said.
“I was working on a Spike Lee movie called “She Hate Me”, in the costume department and I learned that styling and costume design are different … When you’re styling, you’re styling for a real person but when you’re a costume designer you’re creating people,” she said.
White said she’s done every job to do within the costume department, “and it’s only made me a better costume designer,” she said. “Even on the worst jobs that I’ve had I try to walk away with something positive because I just want to be the best designer and the best boss.”
If she could offer advice to anyone in the industry it would be, “You have to be willing to shovel [poop]. You have to be willing to put in the time. You can’t think that just because [you] have a sense of style and know how to dress [and that] makes you a great designer. Be willing to sit, observe, learn, and humble yourself. Check your ego … be super dedicated, be available and be open to constructive criticism whether you think that you’re right or not and just put in the work.”
