Costume is an active agent for performance-making; it is a material object that embodies ideas shaped through collaborative creative work. A new focus in recent years on research in the area of costume has connected this practice in vital and new ways with theories of the body and embodiment, design practices, artistic and other forms of collaboration. Costume, like fashion and dress, is now viewed as an area of dynamic social significance and not simply as passive reflector of a pre-conceived social state or practice. This book offers new approaches to the study of costume, as well as fresh insights into the better-understood frames of historical, theoretical, practice-based and archival research into costume for performance.

This anthology draws on the experience of a global group of established researchers as well as emerging voices. Below is a list of just some of the things it achieves:

1. Introduces diverse perspectives, innovative new research methods and approaches for researching design and the costumed body in performance.
2. Contributes towards a new understanding of how costume actually 'performs' in time and space.
3. Offers new insights into existing practices, as well as creating a space of connection between practitioners and researchers from design, the humanities and social sciences.

Sofia Pantouvaki is Professor of Costume Design for Theatre and Film at Aalto University, Finland. Her scenography and costume design credits include 80 theatre, film, opera and dance productions in major European venues. She is Principal Investigator of the Costume Methodologies research project; Vice-Head for Research, OISTAT Costume and Co-Convener, Critical Costume and IFTR Scenography. Recent works include Tribes - A Walking Exhibition (with Sodja Lotker, 2017) and Dress in Auschwitz (2021).

Peter McNeil FAHA is Distinguished Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and was formerly Distinguished Professor at Aalto University, Finland. His monograph 'Pretty Gentlemen': Macaroni Men and the Eighteenth-century Fashion World is forthcoming with Yale University Press.