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costume
costume distinctive forms of clothing, including official or ceremonial attire such as ecclesiastical vestments , coronation robes, academic gowns, armor , and theatrical dress. The use of ornament preceded the use of protective garments; its purpose was to emphasize social position by a great display of trophies, charms, and other valuables and to enhance attractiveness. Superstition, caste distinction, and climatic necessity all have been influential in the evolution of dress.
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Cite this article
"costume." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "costume." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-costume.html "costume." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-costume.html |
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Costume
Costume. From earliest times costuming has been an essential part of the theatre. In Greek tragedy the actors wore masks and long robes with sleeves, quite unlike the dress of the day. In the Old Comedy of Aristophanes the chorus wore symbolic details like horses' heads and tails, or feathered wings, while the chief characters wore loose tunics, grotesquely padded, and a large red leather phallus. This was later abandoned, and in the New Comedy of Menander actors wore the ordinary clothes of the time. When the Romans took over Greek tragedy and comedy they adopted the existing costumes, with the addition of the toga and stola and also, for tragedy, the high boot (cothurnus) and the exaggeratedly high peak (onkos) over the forehead. By the time of the Caesars, stage costumes, except for the popular pantomimes, which were played almost in the nude, and the patchwork rags of the Atellan farce (see FABULA I: ATELLANA), had become very elaborate and colourful.
When the theatre, which had disappeared with the collapse of the civilized world, was reborn in liturgical drama, the priests and choirboys wore their usual robes, with some simple additions, such as veils for the women characters, crowns for the Three Kings, or a rough cloak for a shepherd. But once the plays were moved from the church to the market-place and acted by laymen, costuming again became important, and sometimes the mystery play of the later Middle Ages was expensively dressed, with golden robes for God and his angels, and fantastic leather garments for the Devil and his attendant imps. In the morality play the allegorical figures representing the virtues and vices wore richly fantasticated versions of contemporary dress, except for the Devil, who kept the costume he had worn in the miracle play. His attendant, the Old Vice, was usually dressed as a fool or jester, with a long-eared cap decorated with bells, a cockscomb, and a parti-coloured close-fitting tunic and leggings, reminiscent of the costumes of the Roman farce-players. Much the same type of costume was worn by the masked actors of the commedia dell'arte, though except for the lovers, who wore contemporary dress, each character was recognizably from a different part of Italy: Pulcinella from Naples, Arlecchino from Bergamo, Pantalone from Venice, while the Capitano was a Spaniard, or sometimes a Greek. The gaudy rags of Arlecchino soon became stylized into the diamonds of brightly contrasted silk worn by Harlequin today, the white belted and bloused suit of Pulcinella was stereotyped by Watteau into the familiar garb of Pierrot, but otherwise the characters retained their individuality. The main line of development was through the academic theatre of Renaissance Italy and the Court play. The Italian intermezzi, triumphs, and pageants, the French ballets de cour, the English masques, gave immense scope for fantastic mythological costumes, often, for the men, based on the ‘Roman’ pattern, with a plumed head-dress, a breastplate moulded to the body, and some variation of the Roman kilt; this fashion was adopted on the public stage and continued to be used for tragic heroes for over 200 years. Women's costumes, as always, followed contemporary fashions. Many of the designs for costumes worn during the extravagant entertainments devised on the Continent, particularly in France to enhance the prestige of Louis XIV, still survive. Some of the earliest were by the great Italian stage designer Torelli, but French designers soon took over, the most influential being Jean Bérain, whose work, not only for the theatre but over the whole field of decorative art, synthesizes all the tendencies of the time. After the death of Louis XIV the elegant balance of le style Bérain declined into the fantasies of rococo, which achieved its finest development on stage in the designs of Louis-René Boquet (fl. 1760–82), who worked both for the Paris Opéra and for the Court. Like Bérain, he was content to work mainly in a contemporary style, suggesting character or period by some small decorative detail. His costumes, both male and female, are characterized by his use of wide paniers, forming a kind of ballet skirt covered with rococo detail. This panier-skirt reached as far as England, where Quin wore it in Thomson's Coriolanus (1749). Among the reforms of Garrick was the abolition of such garments in favour of contemporary styles, Macbeth, for instance, being acted in the scarlet of the King's livery. Garrick's leading actresses in tragedy also wore contemporary costume, including the high head-dresses of the 1770s with a crown or flowing veil, or, for Eastern potentates, a turban with a waving plume. Twenty years earlier Voltaire, helped by the actor Lekain, had begun a campaign for correct costuming, at least in classical plays. In his Orphelin de la Chine (1755) Lekain as the hero wore an embroidered robe in place of the usual panier-skirt, and the heroine, played by Mlle Clairon, a simple sleeveless dress which was less incongruous than the exaggerated skirt of the time, held out by hip-pads. A great advance towards accuracy was made by the actor Talma when in 1789 he appeared as Brutus, in Voltaire's play of that name, with bare legs and arms. The reaction of the public was unfavourable, but by the end of the century the Revolutionary passion for anything remotely connected with antiquity had made classical costumes acceptable on the stage. During the early 19th century the popularity of Scott's novels, many of which were dramatized, led to a growth of interest in ‘historical’ costumes, which meant in practice the addition of Elizabethan, Stuart, and other details to contemporary dress. The resulting mixture is not without charm, but bears very little relation to historical accuracy. The first step towards ‘antiquarian’ detail in dress was made by Planché with his costume designs for Charles Kemble's production of King John at Covent Garden in 1823. Charles Kean strove for accuracy in his productions of Shakespeare at the Princess's in the 1850s, though as Hermione in The Winter's Tale Mrs Kean wore a perfectly correct Grecian costume over a crinoline. Mrs Bancroft, playing Peg Woffington in what she fondly imagined was 18th-century dress, now looks, in the photographs that survive, purely contemporary. Towards the end of the 19th century the triumph of realism in the theatre meant on the one hand an almost pedantic accuracy in dress which was sometimes very untheatrical, and on the other an increase in the number of modern plays in which the actors wore the dress of the day, often their own clothes. Consequently the designer, excluded from the legitimate stage, let his fancy run riot in lighter musical productions and in opera. From about this time costume, scenery, and lighting began to be seen as interlocking components of the overall design plan. Diaghilev's Russian Ballet, which startled Europe and America in 1911–16, introduced a brilliant non-naturalism in both settings and costumes which influenced all departments of theatre design. In contrast, Appia and Craig had been arguing for simplicity, grouping figures statuesquely against austere three-dimensional settings or neutral screens. Abstraction and symbolism swept through the avant-garde theatres of France, Germany, and, especially, Soviet Russia, where the Constructivists of the post-Revolutionary years favoured an impersonal approach with the actor treated almost as an icon. The more extreme examples of modernist costume design were self-defeating, the shape and movements of the human body conflicting with the elements of ‘pure’ design. Max Reinhardt instituted a form of stylized realism that was strikingly successful in his large-scale productions, but the main line of development ran from Piscator through the anti-illusionist work of Brecht. As in scenic design the boom in new materials since the 1960s, especially plastics and adhesives, has greatly increased the costume designer's range. For a contemporary piece the designer will often choose ready-made clothes; a play set in the past is rarely dressed exactly in the fashions of the time, but in versions modified to highlight character and mood. Plays by Shakespeare have been subjected to costuming in the style of almost every period and culture, from ancient Greek to futuristic and from Japan to the Wild West. The production designer will often be responsible for both scenery and costumes, or each may have a separate designer. In either case, close collaboration with the lighting designer as well as with the director is a vital part of the design plan. |
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Cite this article
PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Costume." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Costume." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-Costume.html PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Costume." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-Costume.html |
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costume
cos·tume • n. / ˈkäsˌt(y)oōm; -təm/ a set of clothes in a style typical of a particular country or historical period. ∎ a set of clothes worn by an actor or other performer for a particular role or by someone attending a masquerade: a nun's costume. ∎ a set of clothes, esp. a woman's ensemble, for a particular occasion or purpose; an outfit. • v. / käsˈt(y)oōm; ˈkäst(y)oōm; ˈkästəm/ [tr.] dress (someone) in a particular set of clothes. |
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Cite this article
"costume." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "costume." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-costume.html "costume." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-costume.html |
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costume
costume †manners and customs proper to a time and place XVIII; mode of personal attire; set of outer garments, etc. XIX. — F. — It. costume custom, fashion, habit :- L. consuetūdō, -din- CUSTOM.
So costumier maker of costumes. XIX. |
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Cite this article
T. F. HOAD. "costume." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. T. F. HOAD. "costume." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-costume.html T. F. HOAD. "costume." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. 1996. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-costume.html |
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costume
costume
•abloom, assume, backroom, bloom, Blum, boom, broom, brume, combe, consume, doom, entomb, exhume, flume, foredoom, fume, gloom, groom, Hume, illume, inhume, Khartoum, khoum, loom, neume, perfume, plume, presume, resume, rheum, room, spume, subsume, tomb, vroom, whom, womb, zoom
•catacomb • heirloom • broadloom
•taproom • guardroom • staffroom
•darkroom • classroom • bathroom
•bedroom, headroom
•legroom • restroom
•dayroom, playroom
•saleroom • stateroom • salesroom
•tearoom • green room • sickroom
•anteroom • bridegroom • stockroom
•strongroom • box room • washroom
•storeroom • boardroom • ballroom
•courtroom • houseroom • showroom
•cloakroom • elbow room
•poolroom, schoolroom
•newsroom
•gunroom, sunroom
•mushroom • common room
•workroom • hecatomb • vacuum
•legume • volume • costume
•Leverhulme
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Cite this article
"costume." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "costume." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-costume.html "costume." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-costume.html |
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