The Character in the Clothes

Opera lovers see the practice as sophisticated amalgamation of music, performance and visual art via elaborate set and costume design. For two Opera UCLA performances, it was Jimena Soto Mejía's hands that made the art that moved with the characters.

Soto Mejía studied fashion and textile design in Mexico City, tried her hand at the fashion industry, and found it wasn't the right fit. What she wanted was film. When she found UCLA's costume design MFA in the School of Theater, Film and Television, she stopped looking and found even more opportunities.

"There wasn't another school for me," she said. "It had to be UCLA."

In her second year, she was assigned to design costumes for "Rodrigo," a May 2025 opera production of TFT's ongoing collaboration with The Herb Alpert School of Music. Three weeks after opening night, Opera UCLA director James Darrah Black came back. He wanted her for the next one. She immediately began designing costumes for "The Turn of the Screw," alongside TFT scenic and production designers.

At the same time, she threw herself into the work she had come to UCLA to do, designing costumes for four TFT student short films. And, through TFT's David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design's designer-in-residence series, learning from Ariane Phillips — fresh off the designer's 2025 Academy Award nomination for "A Complete Unknown." Phillips challenged TFT designers with a creative brief for the highly stylized cult rock musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." Finding the design language to hold both the comedy and the grief of that story was no small task, Soto Mejía said. Through it all, she's found invaluable mentorship from professor Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko, she said.

Soto Mejía is heading to New York for a UCLA-supported industry showcase, portfolio in hand. That city is exactly where she envisions herself.

"I have loved comedy my whole life and I really want to work on 'Saturday Night Live,'" she said. "That's the dream."

STORY BY Jessica Wolf
HEADER IMAGE: Jimena Soto Mejía in the TFT costume shop / Rob Baker

Posted 06.09.26