Polish costume designer Agata Culak has a long career in film and television. She graduated from a private art school in the costume and makeup department, but it was costumes that fascinated her and which she stayed with.

Agata is a two-time winner of the costume design award at the Festiwal Polskich Filmów Fabularnych and has been nominated several times for the Polish film award ‘Orły’ (Polskiej Nagrody Filmowej). Productions featuring her costume designs include “Breslau”, “Ikarus. Legenda Mietka Kosza” and “Broad Peak”.

The Polish miniseries ‘The Lead Children’ (original title: ‘Olowiane dzieci’) will premiere on Netflix February 11 2026, telling the true story of Polish doctor Jolanta Wadowska-Król (Joanna Kulig), who discovered an epidemic of lead poisoning among children living near a steel mill in the 1970s and stood up against the communist system.

Copyright Portrait: Agata Culak

On my part, there were no complicated preparations. I feel very comfortable in the 1970s and I like them very much. In addition, I come from Silesia, where the entire action of this series takes place, so this topic is very close to my heart. I know what Katowice looked like in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I grew up there, very close to the mine. Of course, I had to document what steelworkers looked like at the time, so I talked to Dr. Wadowska-Król’s daughter, who shared family photos from that period with me.

To what extent do the political and social dimensions of the series influence your choice of costumes? Are there certain elements that reflect social conditions?

The social and political dimension is of great importance when choosing costumes. A steelworker going to work will look completely different from a party secretary, teacher, doctor, artist, or steel mill management. Let us also remember that in those days we did not have clothing collections that changed every quarter as we do now. Women were very resourceful and creative in repairing and making clothes, but the social and material dimensions were also very important. It was a time when clothes were worn for several years, and siblings often wore each other’s clothes. It is obvious that a doctor will look different from a steelworker’s wife.

In this story, we have two doctors who also had to be distinguished from each other. One is a professor, head of a pediatric clinic, who travels to symposia abroad and has access to clothes from abroad and the financial means to buy in Pewex stores (at that time in Poland, there was a chain of stores where you could buy Western products for dollars). The other is a doctor from a local clinic, whose material status is much lower. This also needs to be shown through the costumes. In this story, it was necessary to create a world of hard-working steelworkers and their families, especially children, a world of party power that tries to conceal uncomfortable facts, and a warrior who decides not to be indifferent to the harm done to children and does not give up in her fight against the authorities.

You have visited us several times at Theaterkunst. What do you particularly like about our collection?

I really like costume magazines, especially when everything is sorted by decade, which makes my work much easier. In addition, you have very friendly staff who are helpful and really knowledgeable about costumes. I like coming back to you, I always find something new and inspiring, you have a completely different quality of costumes, and I love your patinated costume section.

How did you get into costume design and what excites you about your job?

I’ve been very lucky, as I’m the only one from my graduating year who works in films and TV series. I have always been fascinated by the creation of visual worlds, by what happens in your brain when you read letters and your imagination begins to construct a street, cars, a sidewalk, trees, bushes, passersby, and, for example, two characters having a conversation. What they are wearing, what kind of people they are, what they do, what accessories they have, how they gesticulate. It’s an amazing process. Very often, when I see a costume, shirt, dress, jacket or blazer that I like, I build a character for it. This is how I have built up a fairly large collection of costumes that I have bought or been given, which often wait years for me to use them.

The amazing thing about this profession is that every project is different, requires different preparation, tells a different story, you are constantly developing and learning something new, you visit places that are often inaccessible to most people. I just love what I do.

Dziękuję bardzo for the interview, best regards to Poland, and see you at Theaterkunst!

Thank you very much and see you soon.