Outlander loses its Emmy-nominated costume designer

Say it ain’t so, Terry Dresbach: the Emmy-nominated costume designer of Outlander announced via Twitter this weekend that she’ll be stepping down from the Starz drama.

Citing health issues and a desire to spend more time with family, Dresbach tweeted that season 4 marked the last time she will create the sumptuous and often historically accurate togs for the time-traveling drama. She also said she would “never do another show.”

Dresbach earned two Emmy nominations for her work on Outlander, including one she just received last week. Her recent nod was the only one given to the Starz drama — something Dresbach couldn’t explain when talking to EW recently about her work during season 3.

“Trying to predict the rhyme or reason of it, you just can’t go there,” said Dresbach, who is married to Outlander‘s executive producer Ronald D. Moore. “You take your compliments where you get them and you are grateful for them. Ron is a pro at this. Battlestar Galactica was certainly a seminal piece of television and everybody knows it but he never won anything for it. You look around and you see the company you are in when you don’t win. It’s okay! It’s really okay. You can’t go there. There’s nothing to be gained.”

As evidenced by her ongoing dialogue with fans via social media, Dresbach enjoyed how her costumes fostered passionate discussions about their historical accuracy.

“You’re going against what is expected historically. Back to Gone with the Wind, people always changed their clothes every time they walked on the screen,” Dresbach told EW. “This show has always been dedicated to the idea that it’s going to be historically accurate. The truth is, people just didn’t have that many clothes. And what they did have, they reworked and they remade and they repaired and they patched. I just thought that was a really glorious, beautiful thing to see on camera. People repeating things over the course of 20 years. You see the darning, the patching, it’s such a rich and incredible history there. I remember when I first started on the show, somebody brought in an actual 18th century coat owned by an incredibly wealthy person. When you opened up the inside, it was all patchwork because even the wealthy kept their clothes for their entire lifetime. It’s a chance to look at history in a greater detail than we usually do onscreen. All these things challenge people’s assumptions. When you do that, you have to expect a little blowback. And it’s okay. That’s the opportunity for conversation.”

Besides her work on Outlander, Dresbach worked as the costume designer for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Carnivale, which earned her an Emmy in 2004.

Dresbach assured fans she will remain active on Twitter via her @OutlanderCostum feed.

Outlander will return in November.