Rock & Rule: Costume Rendering
Course: Graduate Thesis Portfolio
The world didn’t end when the bombs fell. Instead, it changed into a dark and strange place. Once, legendary superrocker Mok held that world in the palm of his hand. But fame—like youth and beauty—fades. Now he seeks one thing: a voice with qualities that can unlock his greatest desires.
Angel and Omar and their band have spent the last few years playing dive bars in Ohmtown. They dream of fame and fortune but can never seem to catch a break—with Omar’s hair-trigger anger usually to blame. That is, until Angel draws the attention of the most famous musician from Nuke York.
Rock & Rule is an obscure animated film from the 1980s. The plot is simple: save the girl before Mok forces her to sing at his concert and summons demons of great destruction. The film has plenty of camp, with a villain modeled after Mic Jagger, a post-apocalyptic world populated by mutants, and a rebuilt ‘Nuke York’ complete with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Created in 1983, it features music from Cheap Trick, Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
In this costume design, I reimagine Rock & Rule as a Broadway musical. 80’s glam rock collides with cyberpunk fashion to create a bizarre and alien future city. Bright colors, strange silhouettes, unusual materials, and androgynous experimentation define the club scene of Nuke York. A scene that Mok helped create. Nevermind the deformed mutants that lurk in the alleys.
