If you ever run into a group of people at a mall dressed as elves, or as princes picnicking in a park, it’s quite possible you might find Aimee Steinberger at the helm. The Storyboard Artist and Director, who currently directs on Bento Box’s The Great North, indulges in another creative passion—designing elaborate costumes and putting together unique experiences for friends.
Steinberger’s penchant for hosting themed parties developed after she got into costuming as a hobby. She calls it a form of fan art. “Beautiful costume work is inspiring to me,” she says.” This fascination led to her creating costumes from shows that she loved, learning to sew by trial and error.
Steinberger says it’s fun to create an escape for people, a way for them to step into an alternate reality. Last year she organized an experience that involved renting an 18th-century ship, the HMS Surprise in San Diego, and inviting friends to accompany her in pirate gear. They hired a photographer, and after taking pictures onboard, they continued partying at a nautical-themed bar. She says that like many of her animation colleagues, she’s an introvert, so it’s not easy for her to step out publicly in eye-catching attire, but at some point, she has to just embrace that she likes being a little bit over the top.
For her pirate-themed parties on land, Steinberger decorates her home inside and out, and requests that all of her friends show up in suitable outfits. She’ll serve themed food, and they might play a game–but mostly it’s about the fun of having friends over and reconnecting. The costumes she’s made for these events have included a recreation of Stede Bonnet’s from the TV series Our Flag Means Death.
To set the mood for a Bridgerton-themed party, Steinberger draped fake wisteria all over her dining room but kept the Regency-style costumes optional. At her dinner party inspired by Vincent Price, she created a spooky look and served several courses from Price’s cookbooks, ending the evening with one of his horror films.
For Steinberger it’s important to have other creative outlets beyond animation and drawing—an obsession that began in childhood. “Basically, when The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast came out, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to do that. That’s my job.’” As a kid, she would place tracing paper directly on the TV screen, press pause, and trace the panels of her favorite cartoons. At the turn of the millennium, she eventually got into CalArts, and in her junior year she landed a job doing character layout on Futurama. When the show changed its production process, she had to pivot to learn storyboarding and found she really liked it.
She notes that often in animation “almost everything that we do is for somebody else.” While she gets to make plenty of choices at work, she says: “Sometimes it’s fun to just create something where nobody can say, ‘Oh, I’d rather have it be like this.’” An additional benefit is that it also provides stress relief. She is often told that she should do commissions or bake cakes (another passion) professionally, but that would ultimately defeat the purpose of having complete creative freedom.
Creating costumes is time-consuming, and Steinberger works on her projects in the evenings or on weekends. Even if a hobby doesn’t seem to feed directly into your animation work, she thinks it might do so in ways that are not obvious. “It makes you a more well-rounded person,” she says.
Steinberger’s love of costumes and escaping into other time periods extends to events beyond those she has planned. She once attended a party that is held at Versailles every year, spending months embroidering big pieces of fabric for the hot pink, 18th-century, Marie Antoinette-era gown. And she enjoys the annual Jane Austen Evening in Pasadena. Her costumes for it have included a Regency dress inspired by Belle from Beauty and the Beast, as well as a hot pink Regency men’s outfit. As for this year, she plans to create another special experience for friends. “I don’t know what it’s going to be yet,” she says with a laugh, but whatever she decides, she is certain it will be “mildly deranged.”
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