Browsing by Subject "Traditional dress"
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Item “Ethnic” and fantasy : exploring responsibility, respect, and integrity in the design of culturally significant costume for theatre(2020-05-07) Fisher, Stephanie Mae; Glavan, JamesCostume designers must acquire the knowledge and flexibility to understand characters and clothing from diverse cultural backgrounds. This project explores the responsibilities of a costume designer in creating work relating to cultural backgrounds that are not the designer’s own. It seeks to define important academic terms that are not directly a part of costume design research, but form a basis for interrogation of the costume design process for potentially sensitive cultural material. An extensive literature review was conducted first, creating a broad backdrop of knowledge that could be applied to a design process. Using Cinderella stories from China, Japan, and Korea as a vehicle for the investigation, this study examines one designer’s process of designing one character whose qualities remain similar across much of the world, but whose clothing must change depending on story origins. Extensive research was conducted into the clothing for each of the originating cultures, and the designer used this new knowledge along with new understandings of how to engage with culturally significant material to design the “transformation” look for the various Cinderella characters. The study concludes with reflections regarding integrity, understanding, and the importance of engaging with diverse cultural material as a way of building community across the globe.