Modernizing Costume Design, 1820-1920

Annie Holt identifies the roots of contemporary Euro-American practices of costume design, in which costumes are an integrated part of the dramaturgy rather than a reflection of an individual performer's taste or status. She argues that in the period 1820-1920, as part of the larger project of modernism across the artistic and cultural field, the functions of "clothing" and "costume" diverged. Onstage apparel took on a more specific semiotic task, acting as a fresh channel for the flow of information between the performer, the literary text, and the spectator.



Modernizing Costume Design traces how five kinds of artists - directors, performers, writers, couturiers, and painters - made key contributions to this new model of costume design. Holt shows that by 1920, costume design shifted in status from craft to art.

Contents
List of Images
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 - Introduction: arguing costume design
Chapter 2 - Material Truths: directors, historicism, and Shakespearean designs
Chapter 3 - Frocks and Fictions: actresses, personae, and costume design
Chapter 4 - Writing the Modern Body: the queerness of costume stage directions
Chapter 5 - Life Imitates Art: couture, costumes, and commercialism
Chapter 6 - Body as Art(ifact) or Machine: visual artists design for the Ballets Russes
Chapter 7 - Postlude: designing modernism