Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-164).

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"Reading Costume Design" identifies and theorizes an important shift in costume practices: in the mid-nineteenth century, it was common for actors to wear their own clothing onstage or to choose a garment from a theatre's generic stock, without coordination with other costumes or attention to the particular demands of a role. By the early twentieth century, however, costume was firmly established as an expressive artistic tool in building a character and shaping the complete theatrical experience, overseen by a professional designer who routinely received credit in the program. By focusing on this specific moment, my dissertation reclaims theatrical costume as an object of theoretical inquiry (a text), while maintaining its place as an object of material culture, fully embedded in a particular historical context. I use the figure of the professional costume designer - and her rising prominence across the performing arts after 1880 - as a lens to focus on the changing relationship between the stage, fashion, and visual culture. "Reading Costume Design" argues that this historical shift reveals an important change in the status of costumes: from craft to art. At the beginning of my period, costumes impressed audiences as bravura displays of wealth, spectacle, or craftsmanship; by 1920, theatre practitioners and audience members viewed costume as an expressive art form, and its designer as an artist. As art objects, costumes acquired additional semiotic value, conveying new kinds of information to spectators. Designers created costumes for audiences to "look through" - reading costumes not only for their surface beauty or accuracy but also for commentary or reflection upon the text or overall performance. As a form of expression in their own right, costumes interacted in more collaborative or critical ways with the literary and musical texts. I contend that in this fertile period, four kinds of artists made key contributions to this expanded expressive model of costume design: performers, directors, couturiers, and painters. I use the term "proto-designer" to denote these artists, who helped to shape the profession of costume design from adjacent fields. Each of my four chapters studies one type of proto-designer, focusing on two or three significant examples. Major figures discussed include Georg II of Saxe-Meinengan, Richard Wagner, Marietta Piccolomini, Ellen Terry, Lucy Duff-Gordon (Lucile), Paul Poiret, Edward Gordon Craig, Leon Bakst, and Pablo Picasso. "Reading Costume Design" shows how theatrical Modernism established norms of costume design that are still with us today, analyzing the consolidation of costume choices into the hands of one individual (the designer) as part of Modernism's investment in the single artistic consciousness. This project highlights the importance of costume design as an object of study, able to move across different genres within the performing arts (theatre, dance, opera) and to offer fresh perspectives on fields such as theatre history, media and celebrity studies, art history, gender studies, aesthetics, and material culture.

Cette thèse cherche à comprendre et à analyser les fondements historiques, sociaux, culturels et genrés d’une méconnaissance et d’une sous-valorisation actuelles des costumiers et des costumières, en accordant un primat à leur parole propre. Traitant des origines théoriques de l’art costumier à partir de l’apparition de l’appellation professionnelle consacrée, la première partie retrace le parcours et les luttes multiples de Pierre-Nicolas Sarrazin, en cherchant à identifier les motifs de l’échec de la valorisation professionnelle entreprise par ce dernier au XVIIIe siècle. La deuxième partie présente, à partir de l’analyse d’un recueil d’entretiens de costumiers d’aujourd’hui, les notions de métiers de service et de rapport de commande, de genre et de « souci de l’autre » comme étant les caractéristiques de cette activité professionnelle, et autant de leviers potentiels d’oppression. Enfin, la troisième partie étudie la carrière de Dominique Fabrègue – spécialiste de la coupe en un morceau – en tant que « fabrique » d’une œuvre dont la portée est esthétique et critique, de manière à défendre l’idée que l’art costumier constitue un art à part entière, qui pour être second dans l’élaboration d’un spectacle, n’est pas pour autant secondaire. / This work aims at analyzing the historical, social, cultural and gender factors responsible for the current undermining of the costume designers and makers profession. The first part consists in a historical research onthe theoretical origins of the Art of Costume starting with the appearance of the professional vocable - Costumier - invented by Pierre-Nicolas Sarrazin, as well as a study of the means this latter used to promote his field of work during the 18th century and how he came to fail. The second part is an interview-collection (2013 to 2016) - based reflection on the order nature of the work, the gender characterization of the workers and « care » as a creative motivation. It demonstrates how these specifics are potential ways to oppress the costume designers and makers and to deny them the appreciation and salary they deserve. The third part is an a esthetic critique of Costume Designer Dominique Fabrègue’s career, and the « Cut in one piece » Artwork she specialized in. This section argues that the discipline of designing costumes is an Art in full, and as it may come second in the process of putting on a play, is not for all that secondary and shouldn’t be considered assuch.