Styles in costume design in whatever medium follow four distinct strands. Each is capable of a multitude of variations, but in the end most schemes fall into one of the following.

Perhaps the most obvious is the Contemporary Look, this style of costuming aims to be as close to street or couture fashion as possible and, in film or pop promo, seeks to create vogues or interact with the cutting edge of fashion, similar to the way in which Hollywood once cultivated leading couturiers like Givenchy to design for stars such as Audrey Hepburn.

Contemporary TV drama generally aims for broad viewer identification by buying middle-market clothing directly off the peg. This is especially true of Soaps, where an unselfconscious style in intended to echo back the everyday world.

This style is very much harder to make work in the theatre these days since it is rarely the vehicle for popular entertainment, apart that is from musicals. Whereas musicals once dealt very much with contemporary life, post Lloyd-Webber even Sondheim seems to have wandered off into the semi-operatic territory of presenting a mythic reality for which a contemporary look is not appropriate. Older actors can remember the Esher Contract which specified that they had to provide a range of their own clothing from dinner jackets to sports jackets, which was extremely hard on a salary of under £5 a week, but nowadays this would be unthinkable because street fashion is far too diverse.

Considering the enormous range of street-clothing available, from designer-labels at one end of the spectrum to charity shop chic at the other there really is no need for modern dress productions to be quite so dull. An excellent example of the intelligent use of contemporary clothes, was Jonathan Miller’s Cosí fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House where samples from the current Armani collection were reinterpreted by the in-house wardrobe, to great effect.

Considerable restraint especially in the use of colour is called for when using modern clothes, if the overall effect is not to look like a jumble sale. Indeed it sometimes feels as if the colour is the only element that is under the designer’s control, since everyone involved from the producer’s assistant to the cleaners feels that they have as much right to an opinion as the designer, and is only too ready to share it. One can also get heavily tangled up in the actor’s personal fashion statements. The fact that it is possible to go out to Marks and Spencer for a replacement is both the good -and the bad- news. At least with clothes that have to be specially made, the designer has the tactical advantage that everyonelse is inhibited from complaining by the considerable difficulties attached to producing an alternative.

Unless you are costuming the latest Bond movie, and need to commission 17 exact doubles of every Savile Row suit, it is undoubtedly easier to keep within a small budget by using clothes from the last 10 years or so. Charity shops, vintage clothing stores, ‘nearly new’ shops and dress agencies are all good hunting grounds if the budget won’t stretch to Harrods or Bloomingdales. Some fashion designers will allow you to buy from their sample collections at wholesale prices, though it can be quite a time consuming process getting the permission and visiting the show-room, only to find that your production is placed in a different season to that of the available stock, and it is only available in a size 10.

The second strand is Period Costume, which can range from the hyper-historical approach of some TV Costume Drama to the rather looser Operatic tradition. From the middle of the 19thC until fairly recently, period plays and operas were nearly always dressed in costumes that reflected the date of composition. This has a great deal to recommend it. Most importantly, the social world of the story is brought to life in a way that helps the audience’s understanding of the behaviour and emotions of the characters. Period costumes can create images of real beauty and grandeur in a way that often eludes contemporary dress.

There are many projects where it would seem that nothing but the costumes of the era will do. The plays of Oscar Wilde and Chekhov come to mind, or those Restoration Comedies where the language is more period-specific than Shakespeare. Since other ages had different aesthetic values, unfamiliar ideals of beauty, and (to us) foreign ideas about what was sexy - properly thought-through period costumes can do this like nothing else.

I make no secret of my fondness for evocative historical costume: I like to understand what’s behind people’s behaviour, and visualising them in their own surroundings is one of the ways in which I get inside who they were and why they behave as they do. I can claim to have made a modest contribution to this genre with the premiere of DH Lawrence’s trilogy of plays which I designed at the Royal Court in 1967. At that time accurately observed working-class clothes had never been reproduced on the stage, and the production -by Peter Gill- was a revelation which was widely copied overseas, the more so when I designed costumes for Christopher Miles’ The Virgin & The Gypsy the following year. As that strand of drama gathered pace in the 70s -reaching its apogee, some would say, with the Hovis commercials- I watched with some dismay as many subsequent designers seemed to think that merely copying from original sources was enough to give an organic unity to the costumes when it can never be more than a starting point.

I now feel that having spent so many years studying the underlying shapes of each period that I have acquired a discipline which allows me to interpret them rather more freely. When I did the costumes for the 1994 production of Twelfth Night at the RSC Ian Judge wanted it to be quite clear that ‘Illyria’ was not some remote fantasy island but an idealised version of somewhere within Shakespeare’s direct experience -New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon- at the very specific period, January 1607. Audiences thought that the costumes were entirely realistic, but in fact the only ones that approached the over-decorated embellishment of actual early Jacobean costume were those of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and the black and yellow ‘pluderhosen’ worn by Malvolio with his yellow stockings and cross-garters. This is one of those instances where the real thing looks so mad, so over the top, that it is perhaps best reserved for making a particular, usually comedic, point.

An approach that I find often works is to take the shape of the appropriate period style and strip it of all decoration. This presents the essence of the period in question through the use of pure shape, without the eye being distracted by any unnecessary detail. This treatment, whose results are often very elegant, works beautifully for the grander operas, as well as for many plays. Once the designer is freed from the constraints of direct copying, she can invent a simplified costume style, adding such garments as kaftans and flowing robes for an air of noble grandeur; or turbans and pinafores for a more homely look.

Changing the period – using more or less accurate period costume, but not necessarily of the period of the story. For example when I designed the costumes for Ian Judge’s production of Gounod’s Faust at ENO in 1985 we changed the action from the late middle ages to the mid-19thC. It was very effective because it helped focus attention on the psychological truth of the narrative. Gone were men in red tights and silly hats, gone also were Marguerite’s long unnaturally yellow plaits and puffed sleeves: instead Valentin and the soldiers wore dark French military dress uniforms, while the unsympathetic chorus threatened poor deluded Marguerite in rigid bourgeois black. Mephistopheles became a dangerously attractive Svengali figure, and instead of a prison cell, the final Act was set in a white-tiled asylum with the inmates appearing in the same decayed white, wigs and all, as if they just crawled from under a stone. The genuine gain in dramatic truth is attested by the fact that this production continues to reproduced all over the world nearly 15 years later.

The difficult but very effective device of using what could be called a ‘double period’ costume can also be considered in this category. It is an effective way of tackling a type of play or opera that crops up regularly in the popular repertoire. Macbeth and King Lear are classic examples of this genre, as are many romantic operas. The works are written in one period, using the language, social conventions and musical forms of that era, but are set in an earlier, usually far more primitive time. Somehow early Celtic plaids and pigtails do not adequately support the refinement of Elizabethan language, or the lushness of nineteenth century orchestration, any more than plate ruffs or Victorian frock-coats quite fit the wild grandeur of the ancient world. Sometimes, as for Ibsen’s early play The Pretenders at the RSC 1991, I have invented costumes that have been described as set in the period of the story but filtered them through the eyes of the period of composition. My mediæval crinolines, for instance were particularly admired in Lohengrin at Wiesbaden 1988, as was the use of bikers’ leathers for Barbarians in Verdi’s Attila. at English National Opera North in 1990

Many contemporary directors and designers feel that period costumes are by definition fussy, and therefore are both distracting and irrelevant to the stripped-down non-referential æsthetic of post-modern theatre –’old-fashioned’ in more ways than one. If this is the case with you and your director, a fruitful avenue to explore might be the “no-period”, non-specific or timeless style of costume.

The third strand embodies the stylistically and self-consciously modernist (or post-modernist if you will) in what might be called Radical Expressionism, where the appearance of the costume is dictated by a strong visual Concept. As we saw, this could be said to have originated with Les Ballets Russes and whereas costume in the first two categories is generally the province of a costume designer in this category it is generally the work of the set designer who wishes to impose a unified design concept on the whole production. In England there have been two seminal influences on this school: one was the visit of the Berliner Ensemble to London in 1956 where everything was pared back to the absolute minimum specified by the text. This greatly influenced Joscelyn Herbert who was effectively the Royal Court’s house designer, and through her a whole generation of designers.

The more recent infusion American Minimalism has led to the current taste -among the theatrical intelligentsia at least- for the depersonalised or deliberately-inexpressive use of costume. I have reflected a lot on the psychological origins of this æsthetic, and am impelled to the conclusion that, apart from its place in the broader picture of visual and musical Minimalism per se, this current stage movement owes much of its power to a post-AIDS distrust of beauty and fear of sexual display. Readers may feel that I am critical of this school of Costume Design, but this really is not my intention; it is that I see it as a temporary psychological archetype which has gripped some creative minds, and while it may very well leave a long-term mark on attitudes to theatre design I do not believe that it will ever offer a satisfying enough visual experience to cross over into mainstream awareness. And ultimately I, along with any other costume designer who wishes to live a long time, have to make a judgment as to where to locate myself creatively in the long-term interests of the medium I work in (ie what style will best hold the broadest public for the kind of projects I undertake) and what is truest to the æsthetic traditions of ‘the well-made costume’ - something that should not be understood as implying historically accurate costume. Having been a part of the Royal Court’s theatrical revolution in the 60s I am intimately acquainted with how a New Order overthrows the Old. But I question that this New Order has the emotional charge to accomplish such a revolution outside the subsidised arena.

One of the first things that the designer learns is that everything put on stage, without exception, becomes a focus for the audience, setting up resonances just by virtue of being on a stage. The minute an actor enters a stage area, a performance is created, however naturalistic; and is therefore subject to the scrutiny of the audience. Whether actor or director like it or not, whatever is worn is therefore charged with significance and meanings, be they positive or negative.

One solution to all this has been to ‘de-individualise’ costumes. This usually involves the use of a semi-uniform, often based on a simple Mao-style pyjama suit. The theory behind such deliberate non-characterisation is that by rendering the costume as-it-were ‘invisible’ the focus will rest wholly with the face of the actor speaking the text. (This procedure has the additional advantage for the director of ensuring that she gets all the notices, and for the designer, that s/he only has to do the one drawing!)

Variations on this technique can work very well, especially if you don’t have the money for more than one costume per performer. For instance, in Verdi’s Macbeth, all the ladies chorus have to change from witches to noble guests at the coronation banquet, so rather than attempt a change of costume, when I did it at English National Opera North in 1987 I put them in plain black velvet dresses, with rotting ponchos as witches, with stiff marqueset ruffs and red gloves for the banquet. The audience didn’t consciously ‘see’ the black dresses, they were only aware of the striking accessories.

Post-modern design, on the other hand, prefers to emphasise intellectual constructs, parallel experiences and narrative forms [see Trevor Nunn, chapter 3] sometimes, in my opinion, over-playing detachment and irony at the expense of direct emotional involvement, visual attractiveness and any kind of decorative quality. Realistic period costumes are thought to set up too many uncontrollable resonances, to be too distracting, too dependant on attention seeking craft skills or just too ‘pretty’ to be relevant.

There is of course a fourth strand, which is good old-fashioned, Showbiz Glitz. This is perhaps the aspect of costume which is easiest for the general public to understand, as it relates not only to Fancy Dress, Amateur Dramatics, Variety, Panto or memories of war-time Concert Parties, but also to the glorious costume parades of the Folies Bergères and the long-abandoned tradition of the final walk-down in the grander musicals, often involving ostrich plumes and vertiginously high heeled shoes.

At one level it may consist of putting on silly hats and pulling faces without any serious consideration of character or real understanding of the psychic process of acting: exuberance rather than dramatic credibility is the issue here, but on another it can produce such spectacularly louche fireworks as Erté’s, capable of rivalling their distant forebears, the sumptuous pageants of the Sun King himself. Design decisions are governed by considerations of spectacle and are made from the viewpoint of the broadest popular appeal. Interestingly, this is the area of Costume Design which does indeed generally dominate the Setting because the costume wearers are either expressing outsize personalities or, in the case of the chorus, subordinating themselves to that end. In this sense it may be said to represent best the dream which everyone has strongly in adolescence -and retains to a greater or lesser degree throughout life- that with the power of costume and the circumstances of presentation each person can become the star of their dreams.

Whichever approach you adopt towards the Design Concept of a production there are still some further questions that need to be considered. Unless you’re deliberately using the non-descriptive route an effective costume needs to tell the audience a number of things.

• Firstly Information. A good costume ‘tells’ the audience about the status, relative wealth, age, profession or trade, attractiveness, temper and underlying psychic state of each character in relation to the others. It’s worth remarking that people’s fashion sense often fossilises in their hey-day. Old people are frequently to be seen wearing the same style of clothing that was fashionable 30 or 40 years earlier. Queen Mary, wife of George V, wore the same toques, the same long Edwardian skirts, the same magnificent ‘mono-bosom’, from about 1890 till the day she finally ceased her regal kleptomania once and for all in 1953.
• Attraction. A costume can help project the relative sexiness [or otherwise] of the characters. It is absolutely crucial to get this bit right. The audience must really understand why most of the characters want to go to bed with A but wishe to avoid X.
• There are two main problems to be faced in this issue. The first is less-than-helpful casting. If your consumptive Violetta weighs 100 kilos and has a middle rather than a waist, then you’ll just have to work harder, because the singer still has to go out and endeavour to persuade everyone that she really is a beautiful dying courtesan. And so will not be helped in creating this illusion by being forced into a white crinoline which will look like her own duvet. You must find a style that makes her look and feel wonderful.
• The second is the awkward fact that not all period costume shapes are equally attractive to modern eyes. The rigidly trussed perpendicular styles of the 1580s and the 1880s are good examples of an overpoweringly unflattering dress shape, and are seriously difficult to make look sexy … even tho the human race somehow managed to overcome this obstacle to perpetuate itself. Equally unforgiving was the 1930s Marcel wave which immediately makes the freshest 19 year old look the same age as her mother.
• Audibility. Although this is less of an issue on film, a real psychological problem exists on the stage when actors are ‘cluttered’ with complicated or overly fussy period costume. It is said that it is actually more difficult to hear, or at least to concentrate on the actor’s lines. An effective solution to this problem is to keep the head and neck area as clear as possible when important speeches are on the way – so I would never ask Hamlet to soliloquise in a complicated Elizabethan ruff, but clouds of starched organdie might be perfect for silly Osric.
• Finally, Aesthetics. Every productions needs an underlying Concept, that is, a stylistic scheme or intellectual world-view which defines the overall ‘look’ of the play. It can be literal, eg Twelfth Night takes place in mid-winter - January 6th 1607 to be precise - in a chilly country house, with many references to stormy seas and “the wind, the rain”, therefore the concept may be to reflect the storminess by the use of fur coats and oil-skin sou-westers. On the other hand, the conceptual inspiration might be more metaphysical, taking the line ‘What should I do in Illyria?, my brother, he is in Elysium’ as a point of departure in the search for a perfect Illyrian or Utopian world as was done in the 1987 RSC production of the play which I did with director Bill Alexander. Then again, the impetus may sometimes be as simple as a colour change: for instance the costumes may describe a slow change from the mourning blacks of Olivia’s first act Court, to the spring colours of her reawakening to love.

Any number of different ways of treating the same text may be equally valid. Here is Trevor Nunn speaking about his decision to update his film of Twelfth Night to the early 20thC. “We brought it forward to a turn of the century world, for a number of reasons; first because it seemed to me that class was a very important ingredient in the narrative after gender - where a group of aristos take umbrage that a steward who is not of their class should seek to govern their lives, and therefore take their revenge, and become reckless about it deciding this should have no limit. Despite references to Illyria there’s a lot of englishness so I wanted to go to a time when those class divisions would be very clear to most people watching - but in a time when all the social detail still made sense. We made Orsino’s court into a military academy so that the world Viola came into was one where she really did have to survive as a boy, she had to go riding with the duke, and do fencing practice. And there was quite a lot of comedy in this. But we increased belief in Viola as a boy so there was more of a dividend when they met at the end.

“Some people might say on film why not have Viola & Sebastian played by the same person - but I think we’ve got to know precisely at each point of the story which is which. I suffered for that updating because Michael Billington wrote in a later edition of his Updating Shakespeare that obviously I see Shakespeare’s plays like 19thC novels - which isn’t true at all.

“Another update I did was Timon, because it was so much Shakespeare’s play about value. By linking it directly to monetarism all the resonances of credit-card living the desperate need to appear to have money really hit home, but for the most part I’ve done productions that don’t proceed from any didactic viewpoint, I just tend to respond to each text differently and separately.”

One of the questions I am frequently asked at parties is “How do you actually design costumes?” I used to make the mistake of taking the questioner seriously but the sight of eyes glazing over during the second sentence soon cured me of such naiveté. Especially since the enquirer’s concept of costume design generally assumes that the designer either gets everything from a hire shop or makes everything herself!

In fact, trying to define the design process on paper is a bit like trying to teach someone to ride a bicycle by letter – everything really depends on the specific conditions and moment-by-moment balance within the situation. The methods have to differ according to the project. Although many of the actual design and making processes are broadly similar, the administration of film, theatre and operas each demand significantly different approaches.

The most obvious one concerns the time-scales involved. In opera the creative team of director and designer(s) are frequently engaged 2-3 years in advance, for theatre 2-12 months is fairly standard (longer for subsidised, shorter for commercial and fringe shows). However in film it is not unheard of to get the job on Friday and start work the following Monday! This is not in itself an issue provided that you can synchronise your own financial cycle with your chosen medium – the problems arise in trying to mix stage and film, since if you’re working in the former you’re bound to be contracted in advance so that when the agent phones with the film offer of a lifetime you’re faced with the choice of terminally offending either your theatre director or your bank manager. The other principal difference is that it is possible to work on two stage productions simultaneously -three at a pinch, if they are not too big, or too geographically distant - but film demands 12 hour days plus overtime. This is the main reason why so few designers succeed in maintaining careers in both film and theatre, even if they want to.

You have been asked to do the costumes, and have accepted, and a deal is in the offing. At this stage it is terribly easy to be suckered into starting work before anything’s signed, but it is wise to remember Congreve’s advice ‘Never never let him much discover, never never let him all obtain;’ and keep your brilliantly creative schemes to yourself until the contract is signed. Sadly, one thing you can depend on is that the arrival of the first cheque always takes twice as long as your worst nightmare, which seems to be because admin dept never bothers to forward the contract to the accounts until you phone to enquire why you haven’t been paid. Therefore don’t accept any assurances about things being on their way. Use what little leverage you have to extract the contract before you get hooked on your own creative process. Your bank manager will thank you, if nobody else does. (Oh, if only I could take my own advice.)pass

When the script, text or libretto arrives read it as carefully as possible. Get the director to take you to lunch, and discuss your initial response. Find out what the director thinks – better still, find out how the director thinks – as your ability to anticipate changes of mind will save much heartache and bad temper later on. Then read the script again, this time making notes.

There are as many methods of approaching the design of a set of costumes for the stage as there are productions. It is useful to explore several contrasting design concepts in your discussions with the director … if only to clarify the director’s mind by agreeing how you don’t want the production to look.

You need to list all the characters, with basic indications as to relationships and approximate ages – it’s surprising how many scripts don’t come with a cast list. Find out the number of extras or chorus that you will have to dress, if you can. Work out roughly how many costume changes you would like each character to have in an ideal world, but also how few you could manage with if the budget is small. Find out what the costume budget is, and what it’s supposed to pay for … in some companies staff labour is ‘below the line’ and only fabric, out-workers and overtime is charged to your budget, whereas with others absolutely everything is ‘above the line’ including postage and taxis.

Knowing how much money and time you have will influence both the style and the techniques you choose to work in. For instance it would be foolish to aim for tie-dyed, hand-printed and embroidered costumes accessorised with custom made jewellery if everything has to be ready in a fortnight, whereas if you have only a modest budget but three months preparation then cheap fabric, beautifully processed, could be a rewarding option.

It is worth remarking that, despite all the drawbacks and budgetary limitations of the stage, a costume designer is likely to be able to realise her design vision much more completely and satisfyingly in the theatre or opera than on film - for the two reasons, firstly that it is taken for granted that most of the costumes will be originated, and secondly because the actors are necessarily present during the rehearsal period on whose bodies they can be properly fitted - neither of which is necessarily true of film.

After all this theorising, it is something of a relief to move into practical mode. I usually try to find paintings or photographs and will perhaps draw a few pencil sketches at this stage, in order express my evolving responses to the text. It is vital not to leave too long between meetings with the director, &/or set designer, before your ideas become too fixed to be easily changed. I would expect to be able to pin-point the kind of costumes needed by the second meeting, also to exchange general ideas about colour with the set designer. This is also the right moment for a detailed discussion about the characters and casting so that everyone is thinking along the same lines.

With the broad scheme in place, I would now do any further research that might be required. I use a wide range of visual material: paintings, sculpture, photographs, bits of fabric and pottery are all useful; as are magazines and catalogues. One needs to think laterally in identifying sources: there really is no substitute for an enquiring mind! You need to relate whatever you’re doing to your wider social knowledge.

Photographs are probably the most useful source of reference for the 19thC historical drama. Collections such as those at The Royal Photographic Society in Bath, and the National Portrait Gallery in London have many splendid pictures, as do the many books on the subject.

The main encyclopædias of fashion history, as you might expect, are a good place to start. They never have enough illustrations of the period you actually want, but, their grasp of the main events, both social and sartorial, make them an invaluable point of departure. I happily admit to making Michael and Marrianne Battersberry’s Fashion, the Mirror of History my first port of call on nearly every occasion, not because the pictures are better than others but because the gossipy text is so lucid about everything from the sexual preferences of monarchs to the appalling working conditions of Victorian seamstresses.

It is also worth studying the portraits and genre paintings of the time, though not all are equally suitable for costume reference. The attitude and ideals of the artist are often too insistent to be helpful. While Tissot recorded the endless frills of the 1870s with a meticulous idealism that has reduced many a designer to despair, it comes as a surprise to find on closer examination that behind Sargeant’s flamboyant grandeur the ladies’ dresses are so simply stated as to be effectively useless as a guide to the period … a shame for he is almost my favourite portrait painter.

The flattering confections of the society portrait painters are at their most helpful if the project demands a design concept with a bit of a twist, rather than dramatic realism. For instance, Winterhalter’s meltingly sensual paintings provided the perfect point of departure for the 1994 production of A Month in the Country, in which Helen Mirren played the bored, self-dramatising rather “actressy” heroine.

Finally it is always worth going to look at the real thing. There are good examples of antique dress at the V&A, at the Costume Museum in Bath, and at Platt Hall in Manchester. The hire companies such as Angels and Cosprop also have many originals, but genuine 19thC garments are seldom usable as they’re usually far too small and fabric has become far too fragile, but they can be copied or used as a source of ideas and of understanding.

This is the point at which I choose the paper and work out which medium seems to suit the project best. The method of drawing really does make a difference to how the costumes eventually work out … or so I like to think. For A Christmas Carol [see Diary §] I drew all the principal ‘real-time’ characters in pen and ink as caricatures of the actors themselves, whom I had sketched or photographed in rehearsal; while actors in the dream sequences, such as the Fezzywigs, were in water-colour on water-colour paper.

I like a fine hard surface for crayon and pen and ink, and something soft and grainy for water colours. Coloured Ingres paper is also good to use for simple atmospheric sketches in pastel or Conté crayon. I usually use very heavy paper, 250 -300 gsm, in different qualities depending on what I am using to draw with. It’s expensive to buy retail, but some years ago I discovered a whole new world through the wonderful wholesale fine-paper merchant, Burt’s, still operating in an old Southwark merchant’s house complete with inner courtyard. The only problem is that nowadays they insist on a minimum order of £70, which is somewhat more than a year’s supply.

I sometimes wonder if I make too much fuss over costume sketches, after all they are only working drawings when all’s said and done. However, if you can do attractive drawings there are many advantages: it is by far the best way to sell ideas to directors and producers, many of whom are, to say the least, ‘visually-challenged’. It is no exaggeration to say that well-finished drawings can ‘save the day’. On a film where the financing hit a rocky patch the producer told me later it was the look of my drawings that had given a vision of the completed production and thereby the energy to keep fighting. Secondly, people find it surprisingly difficult to argue with a well-presented fully-finished drawing, and actors usually find good clear designs very helpful in developing their characters. Thirdly, you’re far less likely to have costly or time-consuming misunderstandings with costume makers. And last but not least, you can sell the things afterwards, which can often be a real life saver when you find towards the end of a foreign engagement that you’ve seriously overspent your per diems.

For me, actually drawing is one of the main pleasures of the whole process. It is the part in which the designer can most truly express herself, undistracted by stroppy directors or whingeing actors. Unfortunately, especially on films, the research and drawing process is often concertina’d into such a short time that research is limited to a quick trawl through the designer’s own book collection, and the costume designs may be no more than scrappy doodles on whatever bits of A4 paper were to hand in the office.

Now that it is so easy to produce images with a photo-copier or a scanner, I am often asked if it is necessary to be able to draw at all to be a designer. I can certainly think of several costume designers who have successfully found methods of creative photo-copying to communicate their ideas. There isn’t really an easy answer to this, but I suppose the main thing to remember about these crucial tools is that they are exactly what they say they are, copiers. If you have access to a free photocopier it can be an interesting tool for producing pleasing backgrounds for sets of drawings, and if you have dozens of chorus drawings to do in the same shape but different colourways, you can save time by printing the outline drawing onto the heaviest paper that you can shove through the hand feed, 130gsm approx, and colouring the results.

At the moment all the computer drawing programs are far too crude for any serious use - by which I mean it isn’t yet possible to draw to a high standard on a digitising tablet, and though you can cut and paste to your heart’s content the process is far slower than drawing on paper, by hand, and generally ends up looking two-dimensional. That having been said, I can’t help feeling that if I were cleverer with the computer it ought to be possible to scan in an extended library of body parts and costume shapes and put them together as and when necessary. Apparently there are some clever-clogs who do a completed drawing and then scan it into the computer and marry it up with a scanned photographic head of the actor. Meanwhile I find it far quicker and much more fun to stick to the traditional method.

Ultimately though, it is the energy in the design that has the psychological effect on the final result. For some reason there really is no alternative to the time-honoured need for designers to reprocess the research through their own mental digestive system, and put the resulting images on paper as clearly as possible.

Much of the section on making for the theatre, applies equally to the movies. For a number of reasons you will hire or buy more, and make proportionally less. Firstly, many costumes will only be needed for a week or two, so it is wasteful to make if you can find. Secondly, it is a real battle to get enough preparation time for yourself and your team in order to design and commission made-to-measure costumes, and an even bigger battle to get the actors’ agents to let their clients sign their contracts, so that you can actually get on with making anything. This point is really infuriating and I have observed that some Casting Directors are much worse than others in getting things contracted. (Names in a plain brown envelope on request.) And lastly, since costume for film is generally more naturalistic, and therefore traditional [qv Trevor Nunn, chapter 3] appropriate garments may already be in existence.

In the theatre the Costume Supervisor, sometimes called Costume Director, is responsible for preparing the wardrobe budget, but on a film the responsibility is the designer’s in part because s/he is usually hired a month or so earlier than the other members of the wardrobe team during pre-production or ‘prep’. Having been happily ‘low-tech’ all my life, I had resisted the purchase of a computer until 1997, but now I have completely changed my mind about the damn things. You can get by without one in the theatre, but if you want to be taken seriously in the film business these days familiarity with a lap-top computer is as indispensable as a mobile phone, as there is an immense amount of paper-work involved in costume production for film, in the form of endless, ever-evolving lists.

I usually do a script breakdown first, then a list of all the speaking parts indicating the scenes in which each one appears. There are actually days of work hidden in this sentence, because, in effect, there is no way round the boring fact that you have to trawl through the script for each character, double-checking the scene numbers, so that nothing is missed out. Then it has to be done all over again for the extras. For my current project, I have devised a database which has speeded things up a lot. I typed in all the scene numbers first, 150 of them in this instance, adding a ‘one line’ description because nobody can ever remember what the scene numbers mean till the shoot is almost over, and then I went through the script again very carefully listing all the characters who appeared in every scene, putting speaking parts in one box and crowd in another. This part of the operation took simply ages, but I am delighted with the result, as now I can type in an actor name, press <find> and immediately see a complete scene list for the relevant person. I expect there are programs that do this, but my version works just as well and has greatly impressed the data wizards in the producer’s office. However, bear in mind that no sooner have you spent six days perfecting your handiwork than on the seventh the director will come up with a rewrite that changes half the scene numbers.

Having worked out the number and description of the actors’ scenes, it’s now fairly straightforward to start deciding what costumes they will need, and if stunt, weather or stand-in doubles will be required. Principals each need their own costume plot, with the outfits numbered, described in detail with an indication of whether they will be made, purchased or hired, and the numbers of the scenes for which they are intended.

Next I try to sort out the crowd requirements. The 1st AD (assistant director) is actually responsible for the crowd list, but you will need to have surmised the approximate numbers several weeks before s/he starts on the payroll so that you can prepare your budget. Intelligent guestimates backed up by a conversation with the Director will usually give you enough to go on.

Another vital first step as soon as the warning light turns amber is to check on the availability of your favourite wardrobe team, Get your self fixed up with the best, most experienced and most loyal Costume Supervisor that you can find. Almost all the stress & misery that I have been put through on films has originated from shortcomings or lack of support from this key position. Somehow one can cope with monstrous directors or contrary divas if your own team is functioning properly, whereas if life aboard the wardrobe bus is like Ibsen at his most depressing then no amount of co-operation elsewhere can really compensate. Also phone the most suitable costume makers, milliners and any other key craftspeople to alert them. You can’t make firm bookings before your own contract is signed, but good makers are much in demand, and it does no harm to stake a claim as soon as possible.

While your research, design and list-making is coming together see what is available in the hire shops. If there are a number of other films that are using the same period as you intend, it is helpful to know this so that you can plan your strategy accordingly.

Now you urgently need to sort out and balance your budget. This is where the computer really pays for itself. I now write the lists directly onto a spreadsheet, which allows me to enter the estimated figures and have the program calculate the results in one operation. Altering them at a later date is even easier since one only has to re-key the figures.

As light relief from all this paper-work, it is a good idea to force yourself to take the odd quiet day at home to actually design some costumes before pre-production hysteria really sets in. If you have notice of a project use the time while the front-office is arm-wrestling the finance into place to assemble your reference. The rule of thumb is that the more urgent a green light is, to meet seasonal or other deadlines, the longer the finance people will dicker about, so that the design team is invariably left with about two thirds of the time needed. Don’t be superstitious about buying art books in advance, even if the light gets stuck forever amber, they’ll always be useful later, and at the very least they’ll expand your knowledge. I’m currently in pre-production on The Clandestine Marriage which had been hanging fire for over a year, during which I spent part of the time assembling a collection of 18thC portrait reference. Nowadays because it’s so cheap and convenient I tend to make colour photocopies of things to save the hassle of lugging dozens of heavy art books to every meeting. (Make sure there is a small corner of the budget marked ‘research expenses’ to cover such things.)

There will probably not be time to do drawings for everyone. But I try to draw all the costumes that are going to be made, and then do quick sketches, backed up by any other reference material that has caught my eye, to clarify my intentions about everyone else to the director, the production designer, the actors, the costumiers in the hire shops and the other members of the wardrobe team so that everyone concerned is pointing in the same direction. (If you’re fearfully grand and doing a mega-musical you’ll probably have a couple of assistants to perform all the preceding chores leaving you free to draw.)

Sooner or later you will have to face the business of turning all the ideas, lists and costume sketches into three dimensions. Usually sooner, indeed often before the drawings are even on the page, there will be a phone call from the Costume Supervisor reminding you that the sketches were due last week, and tactfully suggesting a meeting.

There are many ways of producing costumes, ranging from couture standard made to measure garments to the assembling of charity shop finds. A number of factors need to be considered, which can be summarised under three main questions: How much? How many? and How long [have you got]? The answers to these questions will decide whether you make, hire or find your costumes.

Time, money and the period will indicate where the costumes will come from. The choices at the designers’ disposal are more or less as follows, in descending order at 1999 prices per costume:

There are traditional ways of dividing up the costume list into makes, hires, and finds, depending on the size of the budget (and that of the performers) the number and style of the costumes and the length of time for which they are needed, and of course whether you’re doing a film, opera or play, since different timescales apply to each. My checklist goes:

1. How many costumes are needed?
2. How long have you got?
3. What is the budget?
4. What is the average money per costume? These two answers will make a lot of choices for you.
5. Larger projects will normally have Crowd or Chorus as well as principals and therefore
6. How many Principals’ costumes are there?
7. Estimate the cost of the Principals’ costumes
8. How many Extras or Chorus costumes?
9. The formula (C-F)÷G = the amount available per Crowd costume.
10. How much skilled help do you have?
11. May some of the costumes already exist, either to hire or to buy?
12. How long do you need the costumes for?
13. Are your performers of ordinary size (opera singers) or actors?

Hire companies normally cater for actors, which can make finding ‘ordinary’ sized costumes more difficulty. But for production periods of under 12 weeks, it generally makes more sense to hire at least the men’s clothes if you can.

Ultimately your decisions are likely to depend a lot on the style of the production and the length of the run. For instance most opera costumes will be specially made, partly because opera singers tend to be built for comfort rather than speed, and also because visual originality is demanded which is simply not available ready-made, but mainly because a successful production may well remain in the repertoire of the opera company for 25 years, and will almost certainly be hired lock, stock and barrel to other companies all over the world.

Similarly for a conventionally-designed period play one would probably consider hiring most of the men’s tailored costumes, while making much of the leading man’s wardrobe and a few other bits and pieces for other main parts. One might hope to hire some of the more conventional women’s costumes, maids, governesses and so forth but would make the leading actresses’ costumes as a matter of course. The earlier the period, or the more unusual the production concept, the more you will have to make.

Modern productions are sometimes rather dismissively known as ‘shopping shows’ for the obvious reason that you really do shop till you drop. Creative shopping takes far more time than you might think, especially with an actor in tow. Really grand actors insist on the clothes being taken ‘on appro’ to the star’s apartment or the rehearsal room for fitting. After which someone has to return all the rejects and try to get refunds.

I find that the best way to deal with buying trips, both for fabrics and ready-made clothes, is to make a schedule of all the most promising shops and to visit them -with your Costume Supervisor or Assistant should you have one- without even trying to make any purchases, on the grounds that something better will often turn up in the last place you think of. Take notes, swatches or Polaroids of all the options, and then sit down over a cup of coffee to make decisions as to what is actually needed. Then all the pick-ups can be achieved in one fell swoop, preferably with a car or taxi on hand to minimise the exhaustion caused by lugging all those parcels about.

Be aware that it can be quite distressing for everyone, not least the actors, to be saddled with a heap of old costumes that look -and smell- like the left-overs from a particularly sad jumble sale. Coming upon such piles of tat reminds one that nothing dates faster than extreme fashion styles. Hunting for the few acceptable or appropriately-coloured classics that are not falling to bits among the piles of sad, badly designed, lurid or minute old has-beens in the basement of hire shops is an experience that nobody in their right mind would want to undergo too often. And that’s without the smaller fauna that colonise such places!

It is a great pleasure to have clothes specially made for your production, but it can be very expensive; however, as it’s neither essential nor necessarily desirable to use couture-standard freelance makers for every last chorus costume, you may want to consider designing a style of costume that can be partly or wholly mass produced in an obliging garment factory. The essential rule if doing this is to make a sample that is absolutely perfect in every detail for the factory to copy. Garment makers are trained to copy exactly whatever they’re given with no interpretation whatever (they are hardly paid enough for that) and therefore, you will never get back anything better than you started with, unlike couture makers who will of course interpret your designs creatively and will hopefully come up with something which improves or at least enhances your concept. I have at various times produced very satisfactory Druids, Roman Citizens and Revolutionaries by the factory method.

The fitting is one of the most crucial parts of the whole costume process. Whether the costumes are purchased, hired or made to measure, at some point the performer needs to try them on.

How closely does a costume designer work with the actors? Obviously you have to carry your actors with you, but this doesn’t mean you have to pandar to their every whim. On the other hand if you don’t have an actor’s trust life can get very tricky. I’ve only ever had two failures: Irene Worth as Hedda Gabler in Canada, and another actress whose name appears in these pages: in both cases everyone came out alive but the fundamental problem was that the actresses in question had agendas of their own which they weren’t going to let me in on.

Costume Design is always a multilateral negotiation - between the designer, the actor and the director. The job of the Costume Designer is to see that at the end of the process there is an æsthetically coherent result which has freed the actor to perform and pleased the director but has also worked to create a visual ensemble. Nobody else may notice every detail of this consciously, but it is this quality of subliminal coherence that influences people’s responses to the production because it adds an underlying unity to the drama.

A major part of the designer’s task is to keep this end, this look, in mind during the fittings and production meetings, so that whatever it is politic to ‘give away’ does not compromise this underlying motivation, for it is that which makes the ‘designerly’ contribution to a production – I mean this in the sense that the word ‘painterly’ is used of a visual quality which comes only from long experience of handling certain materials. You have to be clear in your own mind about how you want the production to end up without being too rigid about how it gets there. Rigidity will invariably provoke opposition and may prevent you from achieving your ultimate goal.

It’s really quite simple, in fittings you must be genuinely willing to compromise, for after all the actor has to go out there and do it: but in compromise you need to be sufficiently quick on your feet to see where the actor is coming from, and how you can best suggest a solution to the underlying problem - rather than what the actor may see as the presenting problem.

As I have already said, your position -prestige would not be too strong a word- is greatly enhanced if you have good clear drawings based on sound homework and the support of the director. Your hand is also strengthened to the degree that your work is known and respected.

Appropriately, many actors are intimately concerned with their appearance. For instance, when I asked the actor, painter and novelist Anthony Sher he said “I insist on consultation. After all, as I’m inside the character it could be argued that I’m best placed to judge how the character feels and thus looks. (Being an artist as well as an actor I’m very interested to get ‘the look’ right, and will often sketch it myself.)” Desmond Barritt responded: “The ‘look’ is my starting point for a performance, so the costume is of paramount importance. Period costumes dictate how you move - I therefore use this to work on my character. Shoes are probably the most important part of the costume. Any design has to be a joint decision between designer and actor.” So Costume is not an area for the Edward Gordon Craigs of this world who have to have everything all their own way.

Nigel Hawthorne told me that provided he trusted the designer he would concede even things he was unhappy with because ultimately “s/he has the overall picture. In this spirit, in Sheffield in 1970, much against my better judgment, I played Macbeth in leotard and tights (my ‘muscles’ were glued-on strips of polystyrene) motor-cycling boots and gauntlets, a huge red plastic cloak and a bald pate. My decision to support the designer’s vision, in spite of my personal reservations, was vindicated because -oddly enough- the production was hugely successful. But I certainly didn’t feel I’d been ‘helped’.”

“The most important thing about period costume” for Sher “is that it should look like clothes rather than costume; real clothes that the people are wearing, rather than posing in – as we managed to achieve with my Disræli in Mrs Brown.”

A practical point to bear in mind is that opera houses often have quite steeply raked stages, and that elaborate or heavy costumes can cause real problems for the performers. The opera singer Richard Van Allen told me he had once had his back put out by just this combination of circumstances.

The experience of fitting ranges from invigorating creative teamwork at its most efficient, to a hellish, bad-tempered shambles that makes you want to leave the business altogether. [See Christmas Carol diary] For reasons that I still only partly understand, a day of fittings is uniquely exhausting, literally draining, especially for the designer. I imagine that it has to be the combination of performance, concentration and power-selling that wears one out.

If fittings in the costume house with trained fitters and in-house alteration hands are hard, then the alternative option, not doing the fittings in the costume house, can be even worse. Often the producers will imagine they are saving money by not paying for the extras to come in prior to the shoot day for a fitting, or the location is a long way from base, and it is not possible for them to come in. The worst option of all is that you do not see your crowd till 05:00 and they are due in front of the cameras at 09:00. It is hard to believe that any rational being could seriously ask you to costume 130 strangers in period clothes in a tent at dawn, and expect them to emerge as a co-ordinated group of convincing human beings 3 or 4 hours later, but they do.

A good compromise is to arrange for the crowd to come and be fitted at the wardrobe base, with a truck full of pre-selected costumes to chose from and extra skilled help in the form of experienced Dailies to lace them in or do up the collar studs.

Big Crowd Days are never going to be easy, but there are a number of things that you can do to minimise the horrors. Arrange enough extra skilled help. Never take on trust the body measurements given you by an agent, especially not those supplied by a crowd agency. They will either be years out of date, the size that they think they buy in Marks and Spencer, or simply nostalgic wishful thinking. This is particularly problematical if you’re fitting people on location from a stock of hire clothes in some remote outpost several days away from civilisation. Have enough spares, since crucial bits and pieces are bound to go missing in the chaos. Don’t forget the horsemen. They are worse than musicians about sending in dep[utie]s who are a foot taller with 50” chests, or the wrong sex. On the same theme, if the scene involves violent stunts, the men from rent-a-thug, though delightful, are enormous. It is a good thing that Gérard Depardieu has been in so many films, as without his costumes there would be nothing at all to fit them! Try to persuade the production office not to arrange all the crowd days back to back, as they are wont to do. The wardrobe needs a quiet day or two to tidy up, do the returns and to prepare for the next onslaught, with only two or three principals to worry about. Threaten the line producer with a huge overtime bill if s/he proves stubborn.

At the other end of the scale is the star fitting. Recently I did a first fitting with Joan Collins in the unaccustomed grandeur of her London apartment. As it happened, everything went very well considering the large number of people involved – apart from Joan and myself, there were the two costume makers, a hatter, a wigmaker, a make-up artist, the director, the writer, my assistant who had made her wig-top galleon, Joan’s assistant, her dressmaker and Mercedes her maid. Twelve people in attendance just to fit toiles, frames and corsets!

My trainee assistant commented afterwards that he would find the ‘ego-massaging’ involved as off-putting as the nervy vibes that seem to be an inevitable part of artistes of Joan’s status. It is the designer’s job to make sure that the different craftspeople get all the time and information they need, protect them, if need be from any stellar tantrums -quite unnecessary in this case!- make sure that the actress is comfortable, as well as looking wonderful in the way that you want, negotiate all the colours and fabrics, and most importantly, get the shape right, so that the makers can get on to the next stage.

There are many occasions, when even the modest amounts of money available to a small scale professional production are out of the question. School plays, amateur opera and dramatic societies, fringe shows and student productions must be costumed for perhaps as much as the cost of a single principal costume for somewhere like the Royal Opera House. When costumes are needed really cheaply, even the costume hire companies will be out of bounds, since their charges will be between £50-120 per costume.

Here are some points to remember, when designing on a small budget. Actually the bit about colour applies to larger budgets, but it is crucial when there isn’t much money.

1. Keep the colour scheme strong and simple.
2. If you make costumes, use the minimum of pattern shapes.
3. Don’t attempt to use realistic period costume.
4. Don’t even consider using wigs.
5. Make sure that you arrange enough help.

As our American friends say, the choices are: ‘cheap … fast … beautiful. Pick any two.’ Or to putting it another way, costumes need two out of three attributes: money, time, and talent. And since we know that there isn’t any money to speak of, let’s consider what can be done with the other two. If you have the time it is possible to make and decorate all sorts of garments and accessories in an original and imaginative way that will be far more interesting than costumes that have simply been hired or purchased.

In my opinion, it is crucial that one person is in charge: drama is absolutely not a democratic art form, and as with directing, you need one person, who is clear-sighted, competent and bossy enough to get everything done. If your designer is experienced and wily enough, then it will be her, or him.

If you can count on the services of some clever seamstresses and perhaps someone who is a good colourist, you could consider buying cheap, undyed fabric direct from the mill, processing the material with dylon and fabric paint and making simply cut costumes out of it. This method, which has the potential of producing costumes of real beauty and originality is used at all levels , but is, of course immensely time and labour intensive. It is certainly worth considering if you are producing something with an element of fantasy, say the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Iolanthe, for that matter. If you could find a helpful pattern book such as the Janet Arnold series, or can contact a good cutter, who could work out a simplified period pattern, then even quite difficult costume shapes, such as those of the Restoration, or even the 1890’s like Gilbert & Sullivan or Wilde can be attempted.

If all this seems far too complicated, another method to consider, also involves the use of the dye-pot to give a sense of unity to existing garments. To me, rules 1, 2 and 3 of designing a pleasing set of costumes on a tiny budget involve the restrained use of colour – the less money you have, the fewer colours should you use for a smart and coherent effect. A good example of this approach comes from the 1960s. When Peter Brook was directing US, the costuming of the show was causing endless problems, until someone had a bright idea: since the actors seemed to look so right in their own clothes, they were told to bring in any outfit they felt good in, as long as it was in red. The results were a great success, and that was the scheme that became the design for the production.

The garments used can come from a variety of sources. It will be the skilful selection and processing that will cause your production to have an interesting “look”. Charity shops and jumble sales, unwanted garments from your groups’ wardrobes are all possibilities, and for the more modern minded, cotton singlets and leggings, to be combined with charity shop greatcoats will give you contemporary grungey look. If post-modern irony is preferred, then put the said Oxfam coat over an old evening dress.

If funds are short the use of conventional period costume is probably best avoided. Everything about pre-1920s costume is expensive. This is mainly because until after WW1, clothes were so highly structured. Women’s garments nearly always called for the use of a rigidly boned corset and several underskirts, as well as the occasional additional of such delights as bum pads, bustles and panniers. I feel that unless you have the expertise, the time and the money to get the shape right, it’s better not to bother. There are other ways of creating an interesting look without wrestling with steels and whalebone.

It is worth thinking about changing the period of your production to one that is manageable on the budget and the skills that you do have rather than insisting on sticking to the date of composition, come what may. Many plays will look very good in modern clothes. Macbeth, for instance updates well, as do most texts that are written in one period, but set in another. An effective school production used the Cadet Corps battle dress for the endless soldiers, and dressed the witches as bag ladies. I was tempted to suggest turning Lady M into a Mrs Thatcher clone, but thought it better not to interfere. Clothes from the last thirty years are fairly easy to find in the better charity shops, and can be made to look very good with a bit of care.

Plays and operas set in the far distant past can be much helped by the tie-dyed singlet and overcoat approach. Long ethnic skirts or sarongs, or cotton trousers tucked into boots, or worn with sandals, can make a simple and effective look for King Lear, or Cymbeline. After all, no-one really knows what ancient Britons, or Druids really looked like, so why worry.

The other point to consider is, do all the characters in your production have to be set in the same period? This is not quite such a mad idea as it sounds, especially for a work such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I designed a production once where the humans were 19th century, but the fairies were a kind of threadbare, ghostly Elizabethan, with spiders web farthingales and thistledown hair It would have worked just as well with the humans in modern dress, and the fairies in crashed Jacobean, faded bleached punk, or deconstructed 1960s, [ie charity shop finds that can be artistically shredded].

Plays and musicals that cause the biggest headache to the impecunious costume designer are those social dramas that deal with high society. I would include operettas such as The Merry Widow, The Student Prince, most of the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, the Restoration dramatists and anything by Oscar Wilde. Wealthy aristocrats having parties are nearly impossible to do on the cheap.

It is certainly worth considering hiring the costumes for such period pieces. The out of town hire companies are usually much cheaper than Angels or Cosprop and often have sets of costumes for the more popular plays and musicals. It is sensible to approach them with a fairly open mind. For instance it is not much use insisting on that set of 1850s crinolines for your production of La Bohème if they are already booked for the am-drams performance of A Christmas Carol. Look and see which period is well represented and invent a concept to justify it. All those freezing students would look every bit as good in 1920s blazers or 1950s Sloppy Joe sweaters and corduroy trousers. Most sopranos look dreadful in crinolines anyway.