Top Hollywood Film Fashion Designer
Judy Ruskin-Howell
at the Everson Museum
Inaugurated the 2005 Syracuse International Film & Video Festival's pre-festival agenda.

One of today's top Hollywood costume designers, Judy Ruskin-Howell, was recently the guest speaker at the Everson Museum of Art in a unique presentation about the art of creating fashion for films. This special program was co-sponsored by the 2005 Syracuse International Film and Video Festival (SIFVF) and the Everson Museum.

Among the films included in Ruskin-Howell's filmography are Woody Allen's latest, Melinda and Melinda (2005); Guess Who (2005); Bruce Almighty (2003); The Horse Whisperer (1998), Patch Adams (1998); Liar, Liar (1997); A Walk In The Clouds (1995), and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), among many others.

Philadelphia-born Judy Ruskin-Howell is a graduate from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, with a BFA and minor in Art Education. Soon after she completed her studies, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in art, where she was hired to be an assistant costume designer and worked in this capacity for six years. Her first full scale costume design project was Born on the 4 th of July (1989), starring Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam war veteran who becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country that he fought for.

After that, she moved to Los Angeles, where she soon began to work and felt privileged in that she's always been able to choose the films that she wanted to work on. One of the things she loves most about her work is the collaboration or as she calls it: the “community” aspect of filmmaking to bring a film to completion.

Judy Ruskin Howell's presentation included a film costume fashion show of select pieces from the private collection of film historian Jim Loperfido, owner of Emerald City Video in Syracuse, modeled by Syracuse University students from the Fashion Design Program.

The Syracuse International Film & Video Festival (SIFVF) is a Production of Point of Contact.

Special Coordinators for the film fashion program at the Everson: Susan Katz and Phyllis La Vine.