Costumes in Theatre
Costume refers to the clothing and accessories worn by characters on stage. Costume can have a huge visual impact on the way that a performance is seen, understood and enjoyed.
As a costume designer you would work very closely with the director to ensure that the costumes you design are in keeping with the overall vision of a piece of theatre.
Costume designers need to be very familiar with the story, themes, style, characters and demands of a production to make sure that the costumes are appropriate and practical.
Impact of Costume
Give information about a character
The primary function of the costume is to help identify who a character is. Costume could give information such as:
- How old are they?
- Occupation?
- Hobbies?
Show Time Period
Clothing has changed dramatically throughout different time periods and in theatre costume can often be a very quick indicator to show the audience what time period the drama is set in.
Show setting of a drama
Sometimes costume can be a good indicator of where scenes are taking place
Status or wealth of characters
Characters of different status or wealth are likely to have differences in their costume - whether this is through the specific items they are wearing or the different fabrics etc or simply through the quality and condition of the costume.
Style of Drama
Costume design will depend on and show the style of a drama: if a drama is naturalistic or stylised. Naturalistic dramas will usually show characters in realistic clothing, however stylised costumes can often be more elaborate or in fact the opposite, more simplistic or symbolic than real life.
Discussing costume in an exam
In a National 5 written paper:
In Section 2 of the exam, you may get asked to give details of design concepts in your hypothetical drama. If you are asked to describe the costume for a character you should:
- Give a description of what specific ITEMS the character is wearing. It is not enough to simply say 'wearing school uniform' because even this can change depending on time period/type of school, characterisation, etc
- Give details of the fabric, colour, cut & quality of these items
- NEVER simply say casual or normal clothing! This does not exist! 'Casual' and 'normal' is different for every single character/place/time/situation.
- Explain the impact of your decisions - why would they wear this?
FOR EXAMPLE:
The male character is a workman on a building site and is wearing jeans, t-shirt and boots. The T-shirt is plain white, loose fitting with smudges and dust on. The jeans are clearly well-worn, with paint splashes and dust on. The boots are brown, heavy duty and a quite dirty. He is carrying a Hi-Vis vest in his hand and this shows the audience that he has just finished a long, hard day at work.
Costume Props & Accessories
Sometimes it might be quite important to consider if a character is wearing or carrying costume props or if they are wearing specific items of jewellery.
Costume Props
These are items that are added alongside the clothing to complete an outfit. For example:
- Walking Stick
- Hat
- Helmet
- Umbrella/Parasol
- Bags
- Scarf
Jewellery
Whilst not all jewellery can be seen offstage, sometimes items of jewellery can be vital to a character. E.g.
- If characters get married or split up, the putting on or removal of a wedding ring is very symbolic
- Larger items of jewellery or a gold watch for example can be an indicator of status or how the character views themselves
- Jewellery can help show the setting of a drama - time period/location etc
