Costume history can inspire current fashion designers, as well as costumiers for plays, films, television, and historical reenactment.
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Periodically historic designs return to favour by Interior and Fashion Designers. The middle of the 20th century saw a marked decline in the production and range of these products. The latter part of the 20th century has seen a resurgence in interest partly led by the film industry's set designers and costumiers. European and American artisans specialising in hand-made products are increasing in number.
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SIS was subsequently acquired from Siemens by the French company Atos. Further divestments included BBC Books (sold to Random House in 2006);The Random House Group acquires majority shareholding in BBC Books BBC Press Office. 22 June 2006 BBC Outside Broadcasts Ltd (sold in 2008 to Satellite Information Services); Costumes and Wigs (stock sold in 2008 to Angels The Costumiers); and BBC Magazines (sold to Immediate Media Company in 2011).
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Walthamstow College where both Russells studied Russell studied Fashion at Walthamstow College of Art, and she later attended the Royal College of Art. She ran her own firm of film costumiers, called The Last Picture Frock, particularly specialising in 1930s and 1940s clothing. The firm was sold to the costumier Angels in the 1970s. Her interest in historic costume began when she assisted Doris Langley Moore, the founder of the Bath Costume Museum.
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The business currently has two divisions: Angels The Costumiers, based in North London, which supplies costumes to the entertainment industry, and Angels Fancy Dress, suppliers of fancy dress to the general public. The Angels warehouse in Hendon, north London, where the majority of their costume collection is stored, houses an estimated five million items on approximately eight miles of rails. Angels now runs public tours twice a month. The shop now houses four floors of fancy dress costumes available to purchase and hire.
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Four-time winner of the British Designer of the Year award Alexander McQueen CBE served an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, before joining Gieves & Hawkes. He later joined the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans. McQueen went on to found the fashion house Alexander McQueen, from which the creative director Sarah Burton designed the dress worn by Catherine Middleton during her wedding to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in April 2011. Alexander McQueen have a flagship store at Number 9, Savile Row for Bespoke and Made-to-Measure.
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Chelsea, at that time, was growing in affluence and the business flourished, quickly expanding into 26 neighbouring properties before being rebuilt in the 1880s. The original premises were replaced with a five storey building of red brick and red Mansfield stone under a green slate roof. Completed in 1890, the new building was lavishly appointed with marble pillars, thick carpets and palms. Staff quarters contained a library, piano and two billiard tables and the shop was the first in England to be lit by electricity throughout. At this time the business described itself as ‘silk mercers, costumiers and complete house furnishers'.
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Appropriate and acceptable costume is subject to changes in fashion and local cultural norms. This general usage has gradually been replaced by the terms "dress", "attire", "robes" or "wear" and usage of "costume" has become more limited to unusual or out-of-date clothing and to attire intended to evoke a change in identity, such as theatrical, Halloween, and mascot costumes. Before the advent of ready-to-wear apparel, clothing was made by hand. When made for commercial sale it was made, as late as the beginning of the 20th century, by "costumiers", often women who ran businesses that met the demand for complicated or intimate female costume, including millinery and corsetry.
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The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which originated in King Street as an offshoot of the Bristol Old Vic is now a separate company. Based in Clifton in a property bought with royalties from Julian Slade's musical Salad Days, the school trains actors, stage managers, directors, lighting and sound technicians, designers and costumiers for work in stage, television, radio and film productions. BOVTS is an Associate School of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the West of England and an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. Alumni include Annette Crosbie, Brian Blessed, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gene Wilder, Jane Lapotaire, Jeremy Irons, Miranda Richardson, Patrick Stewart, Pete Postlethwaite, Stephanie Cole and Tim Pigott-Smith.
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The same year, he was a founding member of the Medieval Society, the first of the now-many period-specific historical reenactment societies; specifically, for medieval reenactment. They had several obstacles to overcome: from the disdain of professional historians for the idea of amateur reenactment, through the difficulty of acquiring authentic clothing, armour and weapons when the only suppliers were theatrical costumiers, to working out how to perform dangerous long-forgotten combat skills with low risk of serious injury. So, they made and learned everything themselves, using the historical records; especially, the items on display in the Wallace Collection in London. In 1965, actor Robert Hardy (who had a deep interest in archery) visited Lillywhites, and Waller sold him a longbow and arrows.
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The most famous surviving portrait of Charles Frederick Worth shows him wearing a hat, fur-trimmed cape and cravat. It appears that he had adopted this distinctive dress from the 1870s. A contemporaneous account from a visitor to the home of "the Napoleon of costumiers" in 1874 described Worth's entrance to meet his party in: "a flowing grey robe that fell to his heels, lined with pale yellow, with a deep vest to match, and numerous other overlapping appliances that modified and gave elegance to a costume as unique as it was comfortable". The visitor, who described Worth as "not a bit 'Frenchy'", also noted that he was of medium height, strongly but not stoutly built with a dark moustache and had the appearance of a man who lived temperately.
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Born on 17 March 1969 in Lewisham, London, to Scottish taxi driver Ronald and social science teacher Joyce, McQueen was the youngest of six children. It was reported that he grew up in a council flat, but, in fact, the McQueens moved to a terraced house in Stratford in his first year. McQueen then attended Rokeby School and left aged 16 in 1985 with one O-level in art, going on to complete a course in tailoring at Newham College and serve an apprenticeship with Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard, before joining Gieves & Hawkes and, later, the theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans. The skills he learned as an apprentice on Savile Row helped earn him a reputation in the fashion world as an expert in creating an impeccably tailored look.
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Miller was born in 1946, and raised predominantly in London and Manchester. His mother, who encouraged the artistic vocation, was a theatrical milliner for one of the leading costumiers to the film industry, which, with cinema, he cites as an early inspiration: As a child Miller experimented with coloured pencils and poster paints producing images of Ancient Egyptians during something he refers to as his 'Ancient Egyptian Phase', followed later by an obsession with cowboys and Indians. At the age of nine Miller attended Mortbane Academy for Boys in Invernesshire, Scotland, where he recalls regular painting expeditions to the surrounding countryside under the tutelage of the art master, nicknamed 'Old Dribble'. Between 1964 and 1967 he enrolled at Northwich School of Art, before embarking on a degree at Saint Martin's School of Art in London, where he began in sculpture before switching to painting, and graduating with honours in 1970.
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