Welcome to the Theatre Costumes section!
If you are a performer, or just love dressing up for Halloween and other events, this is a great place to find information about costume design. You can find theatre costume pictures from famous plays and musicals, as well as links to professional costume design resources.
If you’re working on a school project, looking for ideas for a costume party or just curious about costumes in the theatre, we have what you need.
Here are some of the things you can find here:
Costume Designer Resources
Famous Costume Designers
Historical Costume Designers
Links to Famous Plays and Musicals
Why Theatre Costumes? It is important for an actor to have the correct costume for their role. It not only helps them look right, but it also helps them feel right. If they are playing a soldier, they will not be able to get into character if they are in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. But if they are in military dress uniform or fatigues, it will make it easier to feel like they are really in battle.
If you are going to perform in front of an audience, you want the performance to be as good as possible. No matter what role you play, your clothing can help you bring the character to life. You can even use your costume choices to set the mood for the scene. If you are playing a character who just came from a formal dinner party, you will want a different costume than if your character had just been camping out in the woods.
Theater costumes also help the audience understand what is happening on stage. If you are wearing a white suit and top hat, someone seeing you enter from backstage will know that you are probably not going to be rolling around in mud by the end of the scene!
Theater costumes can also be used as props. For example:
If your character is at
When you think of theatre costumes, what comes to your mind? Are you thinking of the hippie costume you wore in college for the production of Hair? Or perhaps you’re thinking about the Greek costumes worn in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Either way, theatre costumes are a crucial part of any play. Without costumes, a play would be nothing more than people standing on a stage and reading lines.
Theatre Costumes: The Basics
You can have fantastic actors, great stage sets and lights, but if your costumes aren’t up to par, the entire production will fall apart. That’s why so many directors spend days or weeks just casting their costumers. They want someone who understands the nuances of clothing styles from different periods, who can work within a budget, and who can make a costume suggest character traits that may not be evident in the script itself.
For example, if one character is wearing high fashion clothing while another character is dressed in rags, what does this say about each character? Are they rich or poor? Do they consider themselves superior or inferior to other characters? Or does one simply have better taste than the other? These are all questions that should be asked when creating theatre costumes.
Costume is the distinctive style of dress of an individual or group that reflects their class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. The term also was traditionally used to describe typical appropriate clothing for certain activities, such as riding costume, swimming costume, dance costume, and evening costume. Appropriate and acceptable costume is subject to changes in fashion and local cultural norms.
But just what constitutes “appropriate” dress is dependent on the occasion and the individuals involved. For example, wearing a costume can convey a particular message or image as well as social standing. Costumes may be for, but not limited to, theater, cinema, or musical performances. Costume design should not be confused with costume coordination which merely involves altering existing clothing,[citation needed] although both processes are used to create stage clothes.
When a theatre group is getting ready to put on a play, they must decide how to dress the actors. This decision is called costume design. Costumes are an important part of the production of a play because they help the audience understand the characters and they contribute to the overall atmosphere of the play.
Making costumes for a play is not easy. The costume designer has to make sure that all of the costumes look good together. The designer must also make sure that each character looks just like he or she should look and that their clothes reflect the time period in which their story takes place.
The costume designer and his team do research about what people wore in different eras and in different places around the world. They study pictures, paintings, and other materials from different eras to see exactly what people wore. The team may use these materials to make sketches of costumes for each character in the play. Then a pattern maker makes patterns for each piece of clothing that will be sewn for every actor. These patterns are made by tracing around dressmaker’s paper onto cardboard or muslin (a type of cotton cloth used to make clothes). Then, it is time for someone to sew all of these pieces together!
Hippie costumes are a lot of fun. Of course, you’ll need to decide whether you want to go for an authentic look or just a general hippie-ish appearance.
These days, you can put together a great hippie costume from thrift store finds and items from your own closet. The key is lots of color and the use of accessories such as scarves, headbands, hats and jewelry to pull the look together.
Some tips on styling a good Hippie Costume:
1. Start with a bright-colored shirt or dress. A tie-dyed t-shirt is the obvious choice but any bright color will work as long as it has that retro feel. You could go for psychedelic swirls or flowers in bright colors as well.
2. Add bell bottom pants or jeans that flare out at the bottom. Again, look for bright colors if you can find them, but any dark denim will work fine too.
3. Tie in some accessories to complete your hippie costume: Scarves are easy to find at thrift stores and come in quite a variety of colors and patterns, so pick one that matches your shirt or pants and wear it around your neck or on your head. If you have sunglasses in an old fashioned
Costumes are an important part of a theatrical production. They can tell the audience a lot about the characters, and help to set the mood of a scene. In addition, they help make each character identifiable.
Costuming has advanced to great lengths over the years, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of talented people who dedicate their lives to making theater come alive.