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Meet Drone Costume Designer

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Lea Pereyre is a Drone Costume Designer at Verity Studios AG, a Swiss drone company. With a background in industrial design, Lea is working in a team where she designs drone costumes to come up with amazing machines and associated systems for the entertainment industry. The drone industry has unleashed new vistas of opportunities for professionals. Thanks to drones, people can adopt a wide array of careers, ranging from conventional ones such as an engineer or a drone pilot to unique characters that are vital to propping up the drone industry.

There are opportunities available for policy experts to shape drone laws. Drone marketing personnel can share their side of the story about their favorite gizmos. Marine biologists can employ drones to collect whale DNA while beekeepers can carry out precision pollination while simultaneously striving to save the dwindling bee population in a bid to enhance honey production with the help of drones.

Of course, all these jobs have a charisma associated with them and would definitely become the center of attention at late-night parties but you can’t get cooler than a Drone Costume Designer, can you?
Yes, Lea Pereyre works at Verity Studios AG as a Drone Costumes Designer. Based in Switzerland, Verity Studios AG is a leading drone entertainment providing company that gets 8 drones to whiz through the air in tandem with each other in a choreographed routine every night on stage for the Broadway incarnation of Cirque du Soleil called Paramour and operates drones visible in Drake’s 2018 Aubrey & the Three Migos Tour. 88 micro drones set the stage on fire as part of CCTV’s Chinese New Year’s celebration.

The drones are nowhere close to the conventional old drones that we are familiar with. The Chinese New Year drones have been designed to appear as red lanterns. The Cirque du Soleil drones seemed like lampshades.

Lea Pereyre is the woman responsible for all those exquisite designs. We recently asked her for some of her precious time and she was gracious enough to agree and let us take a peek into her unique job.

Q: There can’t be a bigger head-turner than a drone costume designer? Do people get excited when they hear about your job title?
A: I think pleasantly surprised would be the best way to explain it. Most of them get to know about this job for the first time, so naturally, they are intrigued to know more about it.

Q: While studying Industrial and Product Design at Ecole cantonale d’art Lausanne (ECAL), did you ever think that you will barge into drones some days?
A: Well, drones were never really part of my educational career.

Q: So, without any drone experience in the past, how did you land up with this profession?
A: Looking into my experience as a drone costume designer, I was always fascinated and intrigued by the possibilities of blending engineering with product design throughout my educational career. After I did my bachelor’s, I did an internship at a robotic lab at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). It was a wonderful experience and that is where I came across this attractive job ad titled “drone costume designer”.

Q: Evidently, you succeeded in landing the job and you have been in this post for the past three years. Can you tell us the drone costume that you are the proudest of designing?
A: I really have a soft portion in my heart for the costumes that we designed for the London Design Festival (a week-long city-centric event that portrays tons of art, and Verity staged an underwater drone show for the festival). Anglerfish was my favorite out of the three costumes as I felt that it had a real feel to it. It was a unique character to be honest.

Q: You never planned to be a drone costume designer when you were a kid. So, what really was your dream job growing up?
A: I have always taken a fancy to design my own games – developing characters, designing board games; so something similar to these things.

Q: Boardgame designer seems a pretty cool job too! So, if someone wanted to follow your footsteps to become a drone costume designer, where would you suggest them, to begin with?
A: As a drone costume designer, this field is still in the throes of infancy so I think that a clear path is yet to be defined. I have studied Industrial Design so I would be interested in getting to know the perspective of someone with a different background says fashion design, graphic design, or scenography. It will certainly expand the horizon and help us wade into the unexplored.

Q: If there were no drones, what would you be doing now?
A: I designed bags and gloves for people in wheelchairs for my diploma project. That project is at a pause right now but I would definitely love to give it a go.

Q: You have designed splendid costumes for Drake, Cirque, and other such artistic stuff. But what drone costume would you so dearly want to design for a certain event?
A: I don’t really have an event or location in mind, to be honest. I would love to collaborate with French high fashion luxury brands Hermes or Petit H. They work with gorgeous materials and they carve up poetic surroundings for their products.