alonzo van wilson
Alonzo Van Wilson is a screenwriter, producer, and a film and television Costume Designer who has built convincing characters that exist across a wide range of time, geography and psychology for some of the most compelling shows on screen.
Alonzo began his career as a personal assistant for costume designer Clifford Capone, who brought him up through the design ranks on projects made at Dino De Laurentiis’s DEG Film Studios in Alonzo’s hometown of Wilmington, NC. After working as a key costumer and costume supervisor, Alonzo advanced to become a designer for network series and TV movies. He designed his first feature (1940’s period film) at the age of 24. In addition, he designed the Academy Award-winning short film “Two Soldiers,” which was also set in the 1940’s.
Alonzo became well known for his elaborate Indian Mardi Gras costumes on HBO’s “Treme,” which were displayed at FIDM, featured in 2 Emmy exhibits and showcased in several museums, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Cameron Art Museum, Mobile Museum of Art as well as The McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina. His work on “Treme” was nominated twice for a Costume Designers Guild Award for Outstanding Contemporary Television Series.
Alonzo is also recognized for his work on the celebrated HBO series “The Wire,” “Army Wives,” “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Red Road.” In 2014, he created characters for a dusty, 1940’s Los Alamos setting, on the award-winning show “Manhattan.”
Given his skilled professional background and southern roots, Alonzo was perfectly poised to design the costumes for the feature film “Same Kind of Different as Me,” starring Renée Zellweger, Jon Voight, Djimon Hounsou and Greg Kinnear.
In 2016, Alonzo worked on the TNT series “Good Behavior” and his designs were exhibited in the window displays of Saks Fifth Avenue stores in New York and Los Angeles. He went on to design the first season of John Singleton’s “Snowfall” for FX, followed by the Netflix limited series “Unbelievable,” starring Toni Collette, Merritt Wever and Kaitlyn Dever.
As his career continues to evolve, Alonzo’s Spirit Medicine Productions is focused on developing and writing new content with his collaborator Chip Warren.