The Appearance of a Costume Designer Profession

Costume design as a profession is a twentieth-century phenomenon. Until the end of the nineteenth century, costumes for popular entertainments were assembled piecemeal, either by the director or the actor-manager. Actors working with more than one company might travel with their own costumes.

The actor’s strike of 1919 put an end to the practice of performers providing their own wardrobes. Thereafter, producers were required to supply costumes for everyone by contract. Then the stage designers unionized. As part of the collective agreement producers of Broadway and touring productions had to hire a union designer. The first union members were set designers who might also design costumes. By 1936 the union recognized costume designers as a separate specialty.

Film designers also emerged in the 1920s. At first, actresses in contemporary films wore their own clothes. Designers emerged partly because studio heads wanted their films to have a cohesive look but primarily because the shift from black and white to colour film, and from silent to talkie, required costumes especially designed for the medium. The early film distorted colours. Blue on film appeared white. Red photographed as black. The early microphones were so sensitive to sounds that only soft fabrics could be used.

UNIT 7

Musical-dance Costumes

In the eighteenth century two forms of song-and-dance performance emerged in Britain, France, and Germany: ballad operas and comic operas. At this time stage costumes were often based on everyday-dress design.

In the late 1880s comic operas conquered Broadway in New York and plays were designed for popular audiences. From the 1880s until the 1920s the musical-comedy genre in London emerged and designers created fashionable costumes for singers and dancers.

In the fifties, musicals such as “My Fair Lady” (1956) surprised the audiences with numerous costume changes. Costume designer Cecil Beaton had created costumes enhancing the transformation of Eliza, the main character, from a common flower vendor into a society lady. In 1975 aerobic and dance outfits became popular on stage and in everyday life. Bright neon shades in pink, green, and yellow dominated the range of colours. Dance tights, leggings, headbands, and wristlets spread from stage to fashion and vice versa. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, musical “Bombay Dreams” (2002) opened in London and its Indian costumes demonstrated the ethnic influence on stage design.

UNIT 8

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