Costume Designers Guild Awards

Overview

The Costume Designers Guild Awards (CDGA) honor outstanding achievement in costume design for film, television, and short form media. The CDG is IATSE Local 892, representing costume designers, assistant costume designers, and costume illustrators working in film, television, and commercials. The awards ceremony takes place in February at the Ebell of Los Angeles, positioning it as a key precursor to the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

The 28th CDGA ceremony was held on February 12, 2026. Kate Hawley won Excellence in Period Film for Frankenstein, Paul Tazewell won Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film for Wicked: For Good, and Colleen Atwood won Excellence in Contemporary Film for One Battle After Another. The ceremony was hosted by Courtney Hope. Nominations were announced on December 12, 2025, with Palm Royale and the films Weapons and Sinners each receiving 2 nominations. Colleen Atwood was the most nominated individual with 3 nominations.

For costume designers, a CDG Award is the highest peer recognition available in their discipline. The guild's membership evaluates work with an understanding of the full scope of costume design, from concept sketches and fabric sourcing through fittings, multiples, aging, and on-set continuity management.

Key Categories

The CDGA presents awards across 9 competitive categories:

• Excellence in Contemporary Film
• Excellence in Period Film
• Excellence in Sci-Fi / Fantasy Film
• Excellence in Contemporary Television
• Excellence in Period Television
• Excellence in Sci-Fi / Fantasy Television
• Excellence in Variety, Reality-Competition, Live Television
• Excellence in Short Form Design
• Excellence in Costume Illustration

The three film categories split recognition by genre rather than combining all film costume design into a single category. This structure acknowledges that period, contemporary, and fantasy costume design present distinct challenges. Period costume requires historical research, accuracy in construction techniques, and fabric sourcing consistent with the era. Contemporary costume demands character-driven choices that appear effortless but precisely define personality and social context. Fantasy costume involves world-building from imagination, often integrating practical construction with digital augmentation.

The 2026 ceremony produced the first tie in CDGA history, with the Excellence in Short Form Design category split between Rafaella Rabinovich for Dandyland Episode 10 and Michelle Martini for the Uber Eats "A Century of Cravings" Super Bowl commercial.

Special Awards

In addition to the competitive categories, the CDG presents several special honors:

• Distinguished Collaborator Award: Honors a non-designer who champions costume design. The 2026 recipient was James Cameron.
• Spotlight Award: Recognizes an individual who brings attention to costume design. The 2026 recipient was Kate Hudson.
• Vanguard Spotlight Award: Newer honor for emerging talent. The 2026 recipient was Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another.
• Career Achievement Award: The 2026 recipient was Michelle Cole, an Emmy-nominated costume designer.

History

The Costume Designers Guild was established as IATSE Local 892 to represent costume designers, assistant costume designers, and costume illustrators in the film and television industry. The guild launched its awards program in 1999 with the first CDGA ceremony, providing the costume design community with a dedicated awards event after decades of recognition limited to the Academy Award.

The CDGA expanded its categories over the years to reflect the breadth of costume design work. The television categories were added to recognize that costume design for episodic and limited series involves challenges distinct from feature films, including maintaining visual continuity across multiple episodes and managing larger volumes of costume changes. The Short Form Design and Costume Illustration categories were added more recently to recognize work in commercials, music videos, and the illustration art that precedes costume construction.

The genre-based category structure for film has remained consistent since the early years of the awards. This structure has proven valuable for recognizing contemporary costume design, which is often invisible to general audiences but essential to character definition. Without separate categories, contemporary films would consistently lose to period films with more visually elaborate costumes.

Oscar Correlation

Since the CDG Awards launched in 1999, the Academy Award for Best Costume Design has gone to a period film every year except 4. The non-period winners were Mad Max: Fury Road (2016), Black Panther (2019), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2023), and Wicked (2025). This means the CDG Excellence in Period Film winner has historically been the strongest predictor of the Oscar, though the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category has produced occasional Oscar winners.

The 2026 CDGA results presented an unusual Oscar scenario. Kate Hawley's period film win for Frankenstein aligns with the historical Oscar pattern, but Paul Tazewell's Sci-Fi/Fantasy win for Wicked: For Good and Colleen Atwood's Contemporary win for One Battle After Another both missed the cut for the 2026 Academy Award nominations. The Oscar nominees for Costume Design in 2026 were Avatar: Fire and Ash (Deborah L. Scott), Hamnet (Malgosia Turzanska), Marty Supreme (Miyako Bellizzi), Sinners (Ruth E. Carter), and Frankenstein (Kate Hawley).

Recent Winners

At the 28th CDGA (February 2026), the winners were:

• Excellence in Contemporary Film: Colleen Atwood, One Battle After Another
• Excellence in Period Film: Kate Hawley, Frankenstein
• Excellence in Sci-Fi / Fantasy Film: Paul Tazewell, Wicked: For Good
• Excellence in Contemporary Television: Kameron Lennox, The Studio, "CinemaCon"
• Excellence in Period Television: Alix Friedberg and Leigh Bell, Palm Royale
• Excellence in Sci-Fi / Fantasy Television: Michael Wilkinson, Andor, "Harvest"
• Excellence in Variety, Reality-Competition, Live Television: Tom Broecker, Cristina Natividad, and Ashley Dudek, Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special
• Excellence in Short Form Design: Tie: Rafaella Rabinovich, Dandyland Episode 10 / Michelle Martini, Uber Eats "A Century of Cravings" Super Bowl
• Excellence in Costume Illustration: Felipe Sanchez, Sinners

At the 27th CDGA (February 2025), Lisy Christl won Contemporary Film for Conclave, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film winner was Nosferatu, and the Period Film winner was Saturday Night. Carlos Rosario won Period Television for Shogun.

Significance for Filmmakers

For costume designers, a CDG nomination or win represents peer recognition from colleagues who understand the full production process of costume design. The guild's membership includes designers who have managed the complete workflow from initial script breakdown and budget estimation through concept sketches, fabric sourcing, fittings, construction of multiples for action sequences, aging and distressing, and on-set continuity management across a multi-week shoot.

For directors and producers, CDG nominations identify films where costume design actively serves storytelling rather than merely dressing characters. The genre-specific categories allow recognition for contemporary films where costume work is often invisible to general audiences but essential to character definition. A CDG nomination in the Contemporary Film category signals that a film's costumes are doing narrative work that casual viewers may not consciously notice.

The CDGA ceremony also serves as an industry gathering for the costume design community. The annual event at the Ebell of Los Angeles brings together designers, assistant designers, illustrators, and costume supervisors with directors, producers, and studio executives. For designers seeking feature assignments or for productions seeking experienced costume teams, the CDGA functions as a networking point specific to the costume discipline.

Eligibility Quirks That Trip People Up

• Genre categories determine Oscar chances: The CDG splits film costume design into three categories (Contemporary, Period, Sci-Fi/Fantasy). Since 1999, the Oscar for Best Costume Design has gone to a period film every year except 4. This means the CDG Excellence in Period Film winner is the strongest Oscar predictor. Contemporary and Sci-Fi/Fantasy winners rarely translate to Oscar wins, because the Academy does not split by genre and period films with more visually elaborate costumes tend to dominate the combined category.
• A CDG win does not guarantee an Oscar nomination: In 2026, Colleen Atwood won Excellence in Contemporary Film for One Battle After Another and Paul Tazewell won Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy for Wicked: For Good, but neither film received an Oscar nomination for Costume Design. The Academy's single category structure means genre-specific CDG winners can be shut out at the Oscars.
• Television and film categories are strictly separated: Costume designers working in both film and television must be entered in the correct category. A limited series costume design cannot be entered in the film categories even if it has a single-episode runtime equivalent to a feature. The distinction is based on the distribution format, not the content.

Prestige Tier

The CDG Awards are the highest peer-voted recognition for costume designers in film and television. They sit alongside other guild craft awards (ACE Eddie for editors, CAS for sound mixers, ADG for production designers) as the discipline-specific honor. For costume designers, a CDG Award is the career-defining peer recognition, more meaningful than the Oscar because the voting body consists of fellow costume professionals who understand the full production workflow. In terms of Oscar prediction, the CDG Period Film winner is the most reliable predictor of the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, with period films winning the Oscar approximately 85% of the time since the CDG Awards began.

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See Also

For understanding how production design and costume budgets factor into overall production planning, see Budget Breakdown for Independent Films. To model production costs, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator. For comparison with other guild craft awards, see the Art Directors Guild Awards and the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards.