What Happened to Marina Toybina? 'The Masked Singer's First Costume Designer

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It’s no secret that The Masked Singer in the U.S. is known for having some of the best costumes out of all the shows in the international franchise. Their former costume designer Marina Toybina helped them dig their heels into the competition and earn their rightful title in the franchise.

Let’s be honest, The Masked Singer is everyone’s guilty pleasure. In the same way we love guessing the artists, we also can’t get enough of the crazy costumes. Each season is more intense than the last and features brand new well-designed costumes to disguise celebrities. Toybina left The Masked Singer following the conclusion of the sixth season of the series.

On January 14, 2022, the costume designer took to Instagram to acknowledge that season six was her last with the show. Within the same message she wished her former team well in the upcoming season. Fans fled to the comment section of the designers post thank her for the six seasons spent on the series.

Who Was Toybina Before The Masked Singer?

Toybina has been styling and profiling for quite some times now, creating some of the most bizarre costumes out there. She became the queen of costuming from working with artists like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Usher, P!NK and more. Toybina was the designer behind Perry’s dancing shark Super Bowl Halftime show.

Prior to The Masked Singer, Toybina had worked as a costume designer for The X Factor (seasons 1 to 3), So You Think You Can Dance (seasons 10 to 16), World of Dance (seasons 1 to 3), and more. This Emmy winning costume designer is still a household name in 2022, even without The Masked Singer. Toybina has received six Emmy Awards in her career. These awards were due to her work on series like The X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, The Masked Singer, and more.

Ahead of The Masked Singer, Toybina noted that the series was perfect for her, since it involves the type of costuming she had been doing for 15-20 years prior. At the time the designer shared that her biggest dream is to work on films and features. Toybina expressed that she saw The Masked Singer as steps toward that goal.

How Toybina Created The Larger Than Life Costumes

Marina reported that it took her about 3 weeks to sketch out costume ideas. After 20 sketch ideas she narrowed down the list to 12 with producers of the series. She then worked with her team to pull fabrics and necessary tools to create the masterpieces on the show. The whole process took around three months from the first sketch to the final outfit.

Since the turn around of these costumes can be pretty quick (depending on eliminations), Toybina described the series itself as bittersweet. Even though each of the costumes are treated as a piece of art, she compared seeing them go to having a kid go to college. She noted that the wardrobe department (like America) doesn’t know when certain characters will be eliminated so she tends to care most about first appearances.

The former designer previously revealed that costumes picked were just those deemed as appropriate for casting. Celebrities themselves got the choice as far as who they want to be or who they relate to. She also shared that The Masked Singer seasons four and five had some of the most creative costumes because of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Costuming kept up their reputation following 2020 with the amazing designs seen in season six of The Masked Singer. Much of this designer’s costumes come from real life influences to inspire her designs. While she typically pulls from movies, like Donnie Darko and Edward Scissorhands for The Rabbit, some influences come from her personal life.

Toybina was born in Russia and moved to the United States around the age of 11. Even though Toybina didn’t directly attribute the Russian Dolls costume to her past, she shared that it was an idea that had been floating around since season two. The proper casting with The Hansen Brothers is what led the designer to bring the design to its final look.

Fans of The Series Dislike New Designs

A lot of viewers confess, that they tune into The Masked Singer to see the amazing costumes. Toybina created a costume movement by making such great costumes on this series. The Masked Singer faced harsh criticism ahead of the seventh season premiere because of the new costume design. Fans believe that the new designs don’t match Toybina’s polished and flashy looks.

The wave of criticism came as soon as the series revealed their first look at the Good, the Bad and the Cuddly season. Fans have shared less criticism about outfits since the series premiered in the beginning of March, but I think it’s safe to say that Toybina is still missed on the series. The current costumes are getting the job done, but are extremely different than the previous costume designers style.

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