Tim Chappel - Costume Design

Tim Chappel

Tim was born in outback New South Wales in the late 1960s and has lived all around Australasia, including Kangaroo Island, Broome and Penang, before settling in Sydney and attending Sydney College of the Arts to study fashion and textile design for a Bachelor of Arts degree.

While at college, Tim designed costumes for ManLady monsters while working as an ‘earring’ (which is one of a pair of back-up dancers) supporting a pantheon of Sydney drag queens.

In 1993, Tim’s first job as a costume designer was for the feature film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, for which he received an Australian Film Industry Award (AFI), British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA) and an Academy of Film Arts and Sciences of America Award (Oscar). The Australian version of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical has since been awarded the 2007 Helpmann Award for Costume Design and the 2008 Green Room Award for Best Costume.

Tim is now ‘Pan-Pacific’ like many Australians, based both in Los Angeles and Sydney, and moves on whenever it starts to get cold.