The costumers’ lens: An encounter with The Pink Silk Dress

Abstract

This visual essay documents the evolution of a performative public encounter with an ‘everyday’ pink silk dress opening in June 2022. Narratives of Dress: The Pink Silk Dress (2022) was developed as part of the practice for a practice- based Ph.D. exploring how the contract for participation might be renegotiated between ‘everyday’ historical dress and the spectator in exhibitions and encounters with dress. Narratives of Dress: The Pink Silk Dress (2022) utilized the pink silk dress as a narrative artifact to evolve maker and making narratives informed by a professional practice of costuming for theatre. A prior emphasis on object- based study in the author’s studies and professional practice informed the interpretation and construction of historical dress for theatre and has evolved practices within her research to permit access to the often, ‘hard to reach’ narratives of everyday historical dress.