Conversations with Rocky Avalos

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rocky Avalos.

Hi Rocky, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Raquel “Rocky” Avalos and I am an LA native, a costume designer, and artist. All of my life I’ve loved to draw and I’ve really loved classic movies and TV shows. I’ve felt very close to the 1980’s in particular. John Hughes’ film Pretty in Pink with costume design by Marilyn Vance had all these textures, colors, and literal layers that were so inspirational to me. And my favorite movie coming up was Some Like it Hot. When I was at UCLA majoring in Art, I was working at the film technical equipment rental office and was involved in the film club FPS. My first project in the club was doing costume design for a photoshoot centering on the Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood, whose costume designer was Mark Bridges. Upon hearing about this project my boss at the tech office, Albert Malvaez, told me I should get into contact with the costume designer Brianna Quick who worked with a lot of the MFA students at UCLA. He wanted me to just see where that connection could go. And I did, and I ended up assisting her a lot and I ended up costume designing MFA thesis films myself, such as Paige Gresty’s MFA thesis film, A Place I’d Like to Be, which stars Sadie Calvano, Ariela Barer, and Will Bostwick.

I then also started doing costume design on undergrad films, and then production design on both undergrad and graduate films, and then doing a combo of costume design and production design on undergrad thesis productions. And since then, I have now worked on two Ghetto Film School productions, Be by Desmond Jackson that thanks to the program, the short was screened at the Frieze Festival, and Zora’s Last Day on Earth directed by Miguel Ramirez which as a part of the program, included a page of script by the director Carlos Lopez Estrada, who also provided Miguel guidance advice during pre and post-production. I also styled for a video series for the sustainability company Red Carpet Green Dress. Most recently, I did costume design on a Rising Voices short film called Sorry Grandpa Hsiao directed by Candace Ho that was sponsored by Hillman Grad and Indeed and as a part of the program, it will be screened at Tribeca this year.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think the challenges I’ve faced have centered around having and knowing where to gain the knowledge of my rate and knowing what the lifestyle of a freelancer is. For other careers, there seems to be more readily available information and support from schools on pursuing those paths, but as a creative freelancer, I’ve had to figure it out more on my own and figure out the social aspect on finding what is the proper rate, what unions are applicable to me, and what is the proper way to be treated as a creative professional and the logistical aspects of even doing my taxes or signing contracts, and how I am getting paid as a freelancer have been things I’m still discovering.

Also in art school, I was taught primarily through theory when it came to many of the disciplines of art. I had more brief introductions on how to physically create certain arts and seeing transfer students from community colleges that came from more of a trade school approach to hands-on learning and technical learning, I could see that they had more of an advantage of making real representations of what they wanted their art to be like.

With costume design I went back to school after UCLA and went to Santa Monica College so I could get hands-on learning. There was a costume design major at UCLA but it was in the theater department and I didn’t know about it at the time.

I am grateful for my art major background. I still think of how impactful the critiques were and just what critiques encompass in terms of discussions and reflections and what the art brings up to individuals and how it reflects on different contexts. And so with freelancing, there isn’t set stability and there can be waves of projects and gigs but balancing those and weighing which are best, especially when strong stories don’t align with good rates or budget, can be difficult. And being in LA where so many people are creatives, comparing myself to others and where they are in their career has just been a personal challenge I have noticed. But meeting more and more creatives who have multiple interests like I do and who are supportive and encouraging and excited about different things has been very helpful and has helped me see a less competitive side of the creative industry. And it is also a reminder of how in film and creative pursuits, the power of collaboration and respecting and believing in each other’s ideas and potential is essential to work.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Though I introduce myself as a costume designer, I still consider myself an artist first. I got into the art major at UCLA for photography, and my photography wasn’t made with high production value or anything, it was more so following my eye in the day-to-day. And while at UCLA through such classes such as my photography class with Catherine Opie and drawing class with Nick Lowe, I was able to understand more what my interests were, and that was primarily in domestic spaces. One of my favorite pieces I did at UCLA was a painting series I did centered around the lack of representation of Latinos in common cultural forms such as American magazines. Just as home and lifestyle magazines showcase the everyday domestic habits of primarily white Americans, I wanted to show more of what a Latino-American household would include and how that would be as a readily-accepted American cultural habit. I also did a painting as a car culture magazine with a Latino gardening truck.

While at UCLA and afterwards at Santa Monica College, I was a fashion designer at the schools’ fashion shows. And for two of my shows, I had the influence of domesticity and showing that through clothing and seeing how women can claim that space in a power move as they have been so associated and confined in a powerless way with the home throughout history. I was influenced stylistically with 1950’s and 1960’s clothing styles as the domesticity of women was a strong topic back then. I used household materials for my collections including plastic tablecloths, curtains, and toilet floor mats (they were newly bought!). I still want to pursue creative endeavors where I am the creative head. I miss photography and I miss production design so I see more photo shoots that I’m leading in my future.

After Santa Monica College, I got into the Academy Gold Rising program in the Production Track of Costume Design where I got to meet the costume designers Ruth Carter, Debra Landis Nadoolman, and Arianne Phillips. Gold Rising further led me to explore my interest in the world of film programming through their Gold Alumni program. I worked as a Coordinator in Programming at the 2022 Oscars. I started noticing my interest in film programming when I was at UCLA and I would attend the UCLA Film Archive screenings at the Hammer Museum. Prior to that, as a teen, I would go to LACMA for their film programs and was really excited and inspired by those. But at the UCLA screenings, seeing the panelists and seeing the programmers speak themselves it really showed me that there are people behind these events and this appreciation of film. Working in costumes, I really appreciate the research aspect of finding these characters and understanding their environments and their interests and that type of research is what I’ve found myself interested in in terms of film history as well. I love finding out more about the heads of the art, makeup, and costume departments of films from previous decades and going down rabbit holes researching them. I see archives and programming in my future as well.

I am most proud of my collaborations with directors, actively finding who the characters are together. I think my many interests in clothes, art, music, and film archives all help my work be very considered and make the conversations I have with directors feel more personal.

My love for music has also been influential in my love for clothes, seeing how performers dress, seeing old photographs of the punk and rock scenes of the ‘70s and ‘80s and just seeing how creative people had been with their styles. And that’s something that has been a through line for me in all of my interests, even as an artist sketching fellow bus riders during my time at UCLA, is seeing how people visually represent their interests and their beliefs.

I grew up in a multi-generational household where my aunts loved classic films from the ‘40s and ‘50s and even Charlie Chaplin films from the ‘20s and would show them to me. One of my aunts introduced me to swing dancing which further involved me in the styles, music, and culture of the ‘40s and’50s. And growing up listening to Mexican bolero music my grandmother loves from such artists as Pedro Enfante, Javier Solis, and Jorge Negrete and even one of my aunts introducing me to Patsy Cline’s music made me very aware and appreciative to previous decades.

My parents loved films from the ‘70s and ‘80s such as The Shining, Dog Day Afternoon, and Saturday Night Fever. And having older sisters who were into ‘80s and ‘90s teen movies like John Hughes’ and Baz Luhrmann films and Clueless and the Spice World movie. My brother loved Scarface and The Warriors and music from the ‘70s like Led Zeppelin and The Doors and 1950’s and ‘60s rock music. And my family as a whole have always appreciated Tim Burton films. All of these films and musical genres have strong costume designs and reference particular decades or aesthetics. All of these influenced my interest in film and music and how I look at characters, stories, and scripts. Many of my family members are either musicians or visual artists. So I think there’s something naturally in our blood that tends towards the arts.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I feel lucky that I got into the Academy Gold program since when I had first known about it, I was about to graduate from UCLA and had missed the deadline to apply, which would have been my last chance to apply due to undergraduate studies making me eligible for the program. Luckily the Production Track of Gold Rising allowed for community college students to qualify and apply and thanks to going back to school for costume design at Santa Monica College, I was eligible to apply to the Production Track in Costume Design. I do also think it was better timing in my life than if I had applied before. I had accumulated more experience in costume design and production design by the time I applied and I had a greater confidence in myself as a costume designer. I feel lucky that there are so many great and supportive people in the Academy Gold program in the staff and fellow Gold interns/alumni.

Through the Gold Alumni program which keeps us networking together and which introduces us to career opportunities in film, I did the Coordinator position in the Academy’s programming department and through that position, I worked as a talent spotter at the 2022 Oscars Red Carpet. The Gold Alumni program also gave me the opportunity to work as a talent escort at the 2022 and 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival’s red carpets and to do the Fan Experience on the 2023 Oscars Red Carpet. Thanks to the Gold program, I have made connectionsGold alumni who are directors and who have introduced me to other filmmakers and producers that I have led to projects and proposed projects. I have been in discussion with Gold alumni Desmond Jackson on working on another project, with Gold alumni Luis Reyes on working on our first project together, and with Project Involve writing fellow Gerardo “Gerry” Maravilla on projects. Foremost, I feel very lucky to have been born in a family where creativity was accepted and encouraged.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram.com/afittingwithrocky

Image Credits
Yekun Ding, Rebecca Avalos, Rocky Avalos, Milan Kinnemore, Michelle Allen