Susan Hilferty Tony award winning costume designer for the Broadway production of Wicked was presented with the notion of creating an entirely new world. The world and culture of Oz. She creates a term for a method of approaching design that all designers use, "Riffing" (adj.): To alter or create clothing in an imaginative manner. “Taking an idea like a jazz musician and playing on it.” This is comparable to the Fashion industry’s use of images to reference other designers work to influence the designs they produce. Hilferty would begin to ask questions such as; “What would happen if I turned a sleeve upside down? Turned something sideways? Twisted it? What if it had two tops?” 

The texture that the Wicked costumes have is overpowering when seen up close. The use of texture in both theatre and film is important in creating a harmonic balance in an outfit as well as visual interest making the characters that are most important pop. For the character of Elphaba, Susan Hilferty thinks of her as coming from the center of the earth like a piece of coal with mica on it. Her main garment takes two weeks for a professional seamstress to produce and requires 40 yards of fabric. The corset section consists of 12 fabrics that have been cut and quilted together. In a larger scope the entire collection of costumes has more than 7000 different fabrics (www.youtube.com).