Thinking Through Costume

Costume is the glue that brings workers at the theatre together. To think deeply about working with and making costume at the theatre is to trace a map of social relations - between designer and maker, maker and actor, actor and dresser, dyer and tailor, tailor and designer. This book offers a detailed account of how costume is made, worn, used and designed backstage at the National Theatre, London, and in doing so, suggests that performance can be newly understood once we take account of the people who make it. Drawing on interviews with a wide range of `costume workers' - tailors, dyers, buyers, managers, dressers, actors, designers, stage-managers, critics - this book argues that thinking about how costume is made and worn can offer us new paradigms for thinking about the theatre event more generally.