A Working Costume Designer’s Guide to Period Style

A Working Costume Designer’s Guide to Period Style equips costume designers and technicians with all the necessary information to make decisions about fit, shapes, garment choices, accessories, and other aspects of costume design to create a period impression on stage.

The first part of the book discusses approaches for designing costumes set in a particular era in the European/North American context, exploring themes such as accuracy, research, and the role of costumes in creating a sense of time and place. The second part is designed as a practical, user-friendly tool that can be easily accessed during a fitting, while designing, or when evaluating extant historic garments. It provides:

• Reference tables for each of the eras covered in the book.
• Full-color images and line drawings.
• Information on the representative textiles, colors, and surface patterns for the period.
• Details on how different areas of the wearer’s body and garments areas are defined, ensuring that a costume can be examined for accuracy point by point.

This is an essential guide for students of Costume Design courses and professional costume designers of any experience level. It will also be of interest to students of Costume History and Fashion History courses.

The book includes access to additional online resources, available at www.routledge.com/9780815352198. These include information on hairstyling, makeup, headdresses, footwear, accessories, and undergarments, research sources for each era, and a glossary.