The Doha Film Institute held its 9th edition of the Qumra program – an incubator event for films being developed in the region and further afield. Apart from film screenings that have had DFI funding, the program also included masterclasses in which doyens of the film world shared their experiences in conversation with Richard Pena along with the clips from the films they have worked on.

One of this year’s masters was Jacqueline West – the costume designer known for her work in films such as "The Revenant and Dune." It is always refreshing to look at the film industry and the filming process through the eyes of a professional whose perspective we rarely get to hear about.

Also, I was completely on board when Jacqueline West said: "Costume is where the actor meets the character," especially as someone who takes Shakespeare as the first and last word on how "apparel oft proclaims the man."

West herself is an avid reader of literature and termed her university years "foundational" several times for how she approaches her work, particularly when she works on historical drama projects. West’s mother was also a famous designer, and after a few attempts at trying not to follow in her footsteps, she set up a clothing store in Los Angeles (LA) next to a restaurant frequently visited by film stars. And before she knew it, according to her: "She was corralled into the filming business."

During the masterclass, the first clip they showed was from the film "Quills," in which a very young Kate Winslet plays a washerwoman who serves at the asylum where Marquis de Sade was incarcerated. West explained how for each project she went to historical resources and pored over drawings in order to get the details right. For "Quills" and several other films, the production set up their own workshops to make the costumes.

West has collaborated with famous directors multiple times including Terrence Malick. For the masterclass, they showed a clip from "Knight of Cups", which involved many people having a party in an LA house around a pool also starring the famous Antonio Banderas. West explained how for this film they had rented almost all the clothes and that she had signed the warranty for all of them.

"Malick is a water diviner," continued West, and that in his every film, the characters were made to go into the water. When Malick suggested this during the shooting of "Knight of Cups" as well, West had to put her foot down, and as a compromise, Banderas came to the rescue and said he would be happy to jump into the pool himself as he was wearing his own suit.

A film where the actors could hardly survive wearing their own wardrobe was "The Revenant." West told the story of how the stakes were very real because they didn’t want the actors to freeze to death. She said she studied the journals of the fur trappers and traders and in order to secure the bearskin for the film, she had to get a trader’s license herself.

It appeared they only killed the two oldest bears in a year and she had to bid for them. The journals and chronicles she read revealed the hunters would start off with "European clothes" but as the conditions grew harsher, they would add animal skin to their attires, and often their whole costume would end up being made of animal skin.

Another "blockbuster" project that West worked on was "Dune" and this time, she was trying to keep the actors cool rather than warm. When approached by Villeneuve for the project, she explained she wasn’t into sci-fi and he replied she was perfect because he didn’t want a sci-fi look.

Her inspiration when designing the costumes for the film was naturally the Tuaregs, and again the memoirs of travel writers who had been in the Middle East came in handy. It was when speaking about "Dune" that she revealed for the lead roles particularly, apart from the costume, she always gave the actor a talisman of some sort in order for them to get into the role. The one she gave Chalamet to wear inside his suit was a scarf "printed with the Muad-Dib – the desert mouse from the Dune world," Nina E. Rothe revealed in Screen Daily.

Answering the question of what happened to these costumes after such time and energy has been invested into them, West told the story of how Terrence Malick had all the costumes burnt after the filming of "The New World", and West managed to save only the one worn by the lead, to be given to a museum.

This was a harsh revelation indeed, having just watched a clip from "Dune," where people try to survive on a scorched planet, made me wonder about the sustainability of the film industry.

The apparel industry is said to be one of the worst offenders in depleting the planet's water resources. As West described the "still suits" in "Dune" and how they turn body waste into potable water again, I mused how the film industry needed its own "still suit," at least through recycling the custom-made costumes and sets.