Costume Design Skills - Performance intentions and performer requirements

Learning Outcomes

• Explain what performance intentions are and how costume design can communicate them.
• Identify performer requirements that affect costume choices in rehearsal and performance.
• Link costume design to character, period, social status, mood, theme, and genre.
• Justify costume ideas using accurate drama vocabulary and clear audience impact.
• Apply costume design decisions to examples from plays such as Blood Brothers and Educating Rita.
• Avoid common exam mistakes when writing about costume design for AQA GCSE Drama.

AQA GCSE Drama (8261) Syllabus

For AQA GCSE Drama, costume design is one of the theatrical skills you may use when making, performing, and responding to drama. You need to show that your design ideas are not random decoration: they must serve the performance intentions, suit the performer’s needs, and help an audience understand the character, context, and meaning of the drama.

• Costume design can be assessed through practical design work and written responses.
• You should be able to explain how costume supports characterisation, period, location, social class, mood, and dramatic style.
• You need to consider the intended audience response, not just what the costume looks like.
• You should understand practical performer needs such as movement, comfort, safety, quick changes, age, body shape, and role changes.
• In design answers, you should refer to specific garments, colours, textures, accessories, condition, and fit.
• You should justify choices using the text, the character’s circumstances, and the performance intentions.
• Costume choices should work with other theatrical elements such as set, lighting, sound, props, and acting style.

Test Your Knowledge

Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision.

1. What is the difference between a costume that looks attractive and a costume that supports a performance intention?
2. Name three performer requirements a costume designer must consider before finalising a costume.
3. How could costume show the difference between Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons in Blood Brothers?
4. Why might a designer avoid a highly detailed period costume if a performer has to sing, dance, or change quickly?
5. What details should you include in an exam answer about costume design to make it specific?

Introduction

Costume design is not simply choosing clothes for actors. In drama, costume is a visual language. It tells the audience who a character is, where and when they live, how much money they have, what they want others to think of them, and how they may be changing during the play. A strong costume design supports the performer and helps communicate the director’s interpretation of the text.

This subtopic focuses on two linked ideas: performance intentions and performer requirements. Performance intentions are about meaning and audience effect. Performer requirements are about what the actor needs in order to perform safely, clearly, and effectively. The best costume designs do both: they communicate the world of the play and allow the performer to act, move, speak, sing, dance, fight, age, or change role as needed.

Key Term: Performance intention
The planned meaning, mood, or audience effect that a performer, director, or designer wants to create.

Designing Costume to Communicate Performance Intentions

A costume designer must begin with the purpose of the performance. What should the audience understand or feel? Should they see a character as powerful, vulnerable, comic, threatening, poor, wealthy, trapped, rebellious, respectable, tired, youthful, or out of place? Costume can answer these questions before the character speaks.

For example, in Blood Brothers, the contrast between the Johnstone family and the Lyons family is central to the drama. Mrs Johnstone is a working-class mother under pressure, while Mrs Lyons lives in a more comfortable middle-class home. A costume designer could show this difference through fabric, fit, colour, and condition. Mrs Johnstone might wear a faded house dress, worn cardigan, flat shoes, and practical apron, suggesting hardship, labour, and limited money. Mrs Lyons might wear a neat tailored dress, polished shoes, jewellery, and a controlled hairstyle, suggesting wealth, order, and social respectability. These choices would support the performance intention of making class division immediately visible to the audience.

Costume can also reveal character change. In Educating Rita, Rita begins as a working-class hairdresser entering an academic environment. Early costume choices might use bright colours, fashionable jewellery, high heels, or a salon-style outfit to show her confidence, humour, and background. Frank, by contrast, could wear a crumpled jacket, shirt, loose tie, or academic-looking clothes to suggest an educated but tired university lecturer. As Rita changes through education, her costume might become more restrained, perhaps using darker colours or simpler lines. This could show her attempt to fit into the academic world, but it could also raise questions about whether she is losing part of her original identity.

Key Term: Characterisation
The ways a performer or designer presents a character’s personality, background, attitudes, and development.

AQA exam answers are stronger when they explain audience impact. It is not enough to write, “I would put Rita in a red dress.” You need to explain why. A better answer would be: “I would dress Rita in a bright red fitted dress with large earrings and high heels in her early scenes. This would make her stand out against Frank’s dull academic office and show her confidence and energy. The audience would see that she brings life into his world, but also that she feels socially different from him.”

Costume can support themes too. In Blood Brothers, the twins Mickey and Edward are “as like each other as two new pins”, yet their lives are shaped by class, upbringing, and opportunity. A designer might use matching colours or similar shapes when they are young to suggest their connection, then gradually separate their costumes as they grow up. Edward might move into a neat school blazer, smart coat, or clean formalwear, while Mickey’s clothes might become more worn, practical, or ill-fitting. The audience would see that society is pushing them apart even before tragedy occurs.

Test Tip: In costume questions, always move from design detail to meaning. Use the pattern: “I would choose… because… so the audience would understand/feel…”

Performance intentions also depend on genre and style. Blood Brothers is a musical with songs, direct address, and the Narrator guiding the audience. Costume for the Narrator may need to mark him as separate from the everyday world of the characters. A long dark coat, plain suit, or shadowy colour palette could make him seem watchful and threatening. If the intention is to present him as a figure of fate, the costume should not look like an ordinary background character. However, if the production presents him as part of the community, his costume might be closer to the other characters but with one repeated detail, such as dark gloves or a black tie, to mark his symbolic role.

Key Term: Symbolism
The use of a visual or performance detail to suggest a larger idea, theme, or meaning.

Meeting Performer Requirements in Rehearsal and Performance

A costume design that looks impressive in a sketch may fail on stage if it does not meet the performer’s requirements. Actors must be able to move, breathe, speak, sing, sit, kneel, lift, dance, fight, and change costume without the clothes causing problems. The design must support the performer’s work, not block it.

Key Term: Performer requirements
The practical needs of the actor, such as movement, comfort, safety, body shape, visibility, quick changes, and role demands.

Movement is one of the first requirements to check. If a performer has to run, dance, climb, crouch, or perform stylised movement, tight skirts, heavy coats, unstable shoes, or long trailing fabric may be unsuitable. In a musical such as Blood Brothers, performers may need to sing while moving, take part in group scenes, and shift quickly between locations. A costume that restricts the ribcage may affect breath control. Shoes with slippery soles may make movement unsafe. A coat that is too hot may tire the performer during a long scene.

Comfort also matters. The audience should not see a performer constantly adjusting sleeves, pulling at a neckline, or struggling with a hat. If the costume is uncomfortable, the performer may lose focus and the characterisation may weaken. For example, if Mrs Johnstone is meant to look exhausted and older than her thirty years, the costume can show this through worn fabric, loose fit, dull colour, and practical shoes. The actor does not need to be physically burdened by a costume so heavy or awkward that singing becomes difficult.

Safety is essential. Costumes should not create tripping hazards, block sightlines, catch on scenery, or interfere with props. Long skirts, capes, loose scarves, and wide sleeves can be effective, but they must be tested in rehearsal. If a performer handles scissors in Educating Rita during the final haircut moment, the costume should not have dangling sleeves that could catch or distract from the comic action. The intention is that the audience focuses on the joke and character relationship, not on a costume problem.

Exam Warning: Do not design costume only from a still image in your head. In drama, the performer is moving and acting. Explain how your costume allows the actor to perform the scene.

Quick changes are another major requirement. A production may move through different time periods, locations, or ages. In Blood Brothers, characters grow from children into adults, and the staging is designed to flow without heavy scene changes. Costume must help these shifts happen smoothly. Instead of full costume changes every time, the designer might use removable items: a school cap, short trousers, blazer, jacket, apron, tie, or coat. This allows the performer to show age or status quickly.

Key Term: Quick change
A fast costume change that happens during a performance, often in the wings, backstage, or sometimes in view of the audience.

A designer must also think about doubling, where one performer plays more than one role. If an ensemble member plays several minor parts, costume pieces need to define each role clearly and quickly. A hat, jacket, apron, glasses, scarf, or badge can signal a new character without slowing the pace. This is useful in productions with open staging or minimal furniture, where costume carries more responsibility for identifying people and places.

Age is another performer requirement. Actors in school productions often play characters much older or younger than themselves. Costume can help, but it must not become a joke unless comedy is intended. In Blood Brothers, Mrs Johnstone is described as thirty but looking much older. Costume could show strain through a faded dress, stretched cardigan, tired shoes, and a slightly untidy appearance. Hair and make-up may add shadows or tiredness, but the performer still needs facial expression and voice to do the main acting work. Costume should support age, not replace performance.

Body shape and fit need careful handling. Costume should suit the performer’s body and allow confidence on stage. If the role requires a particular silhouette, this can often be created through layers, padding, tailoring, or fabric choice rather than making the performer uncomfortable. A designer should never rely on costume choices that embarrass the actor or make performance unsafe.

Key Term: Silhouette
The outline or overall shape of a costume as seen by the audience.

Costume Choices: Period, Class, Status, and Character Detail

To write well about costume, you need to use precise details. Think about garment type, colour, fabric, condition, fit, footwear, accessories, hair, make-up, and how the costume changes across the performance.

Key Term: Costume plot
A plan showing what each character wears in each scene and when costume changes happen.

Period is a key design concern. A play may be set in a specific decade, or a director may move it to another time. Period costume helps the audience place the drama in time. For Blood Brothers, many productions use clothing associated with post-war working-class Liverpool and later decades as the boys grow up. Children may wear short trousers, jumpers, school uniforms, or scuffed shoes. Adults may wear practical coats, house dresses, suits, or workwear. The aim is not to show off history knowledge, but to make the social world clear.

Social status is often shown through quality and condition. A wealthy character’s costume may be cleaner, newer, better fitted, and made from finer fabric. A poorer character’s costume may be faded, repaired, mismatched, or worn at the hem and elbows. In Blood Brothers, this helps show why Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons experience motherhood differently. Mrs Lyons may appear controlled and polished, while Mrs Johnstone appears warm but financially strained.

Key Term: Social status
A character’s position in society, often linked to wealth, class, job, education, or power.

Colour is a direct way to communicate mood and relationship. Dark colours may suggest danger, grief, authority, secrecy, or fate. Pale colours may suggest innocence, fragility, or wealth, depending on context. Bright colours may suggest confidence, youth, humour, or a desire for attention. In Educating Rita, bright costume choices can show Rita’s energy and difference from Frank’s academic world. Later, muted colours might suggest that she is trying to be taken seriously, or that she is becoming more controlled.

Texture and fabric add meaning. Rough wool, denim, cotton, or cheap synthetic fabric may suggest practicality or limited money. Silk, satin, polished leather, or crisp tailoring may suggest wealth or control. A costume designer should choose fabrics that read clearly under stage lighting. Some fabrics shine strongly; others absorb light. If the stage is dim, very dark detail may disappear.

Accessories can carry meaning, but they should not clutter the performance. A wedding ring, handbag, school tie, apron, cigarette case, notebook, or pair of scissors can help define a role. Rita’s link to hairdressing could be shown through fashionable grooming, salon-style accessories, or practical clothing suitable for work. Frank’s academic identity could be shown through an old jacket, worn shoes, reading glasses, or an untidy tie.

Condition is especially useful. A costume does not have to be clean or new. Dirt, creases, repairs, faded colour, missing buttons, and worn shoes all tell the audience something. For Mrs Johnstone, a clean but old dress might suggest pride despite poverty. For Mickey as he grows older and struggles, a more worn costume could suggest hardship and loss of hope.

Test Tip: Use at least three specific costume details in a design answer. For example: “faded blue cotton dress”, “scuffed brown flat shoes”, and “loose grey cardigan” is much stronger than “old clothes”.

Explaining Costume Design in AQA Written Responses

When writing about costume design, you should be clear, specific, and linked to the drama. Avoid vague phrases such as “nice”, “old-fashioned”, “normal clothes”, or “to show the character”. Instead, identify the exact design choice and its effect.

A useful structure is:

• Name the character and moment in the play.
• State the performance intention.
• Describe the costume in detail.
• Explain how it meets performer requirements.
• Explain the effect on the audience.

For example:

Question: Describe how you would design costume for Mrs Johnstone in an early scene of Blood Brothers.

A strong answer might say:

“I would costume Mrs Johnstone in a faded floral house dress, a loose brown cardigan, and flat worn shoes. The dress would be slightly shapeless and the cardigan stretched at the sleeves, suggesting that she has little money and puts practicality before appearance. This supports the intention of showing her as warm but exhausted by poverty and motherhood. The flat shoes would allow the performer to move easily during busy family scenes and songs. The audience would quickly understand that she is under pressure, making them more sympathetic towards her later decisions.”

This answer works because it connects costume to character, theme, performer need, and audience response.

A weaker answer would say:

“I would put Mrs Johnstone in poor clothes to show she is poor.”

This is too general. It does not give garment detail, fabric, colour, condition, performer need, or audience effect.

For Educating Rita, a strong costume response might focus on contrast:

“I would dress Rita in a bright patterned blouse, fitted skirt, high heels, and bold jewellery when she first enters Frank’s office. The costume would contrast with Frank’s creased tweed jacket and dull tie, showing the difference between her lively working-class world and his tired academic one. The heels would need to be secure enough for the performer to move confidently and sit comfortably during the scene. The audience would see Rita as energetic and direct, while also noticing that she does not yet visually belong in Frank’s university setting.”

This links design to the performance intention: Rita disrupts Frank’s world and brings humour and energy into the room.

Exam Warning: Do not write as if costume works alone. Costume should support acting, staging, lighting, sound, and the director’s interpretation. Mention the performer when relevant.

In practical work, you may also need to explain your intentions through design notes, a portfolio, or discussion. If you are designing rather than performing, you still need to understand the actor’s process. Attend rehearsals if possible, watch how performers move, and adjust costume ideas when needed. A design that ignores rehearsal discoveries may not work on stage.

For devised work, costume choices should connect to your group’s dramatic aims. If your piece is naturalistic, costume may need to look believable and everyday. If your piece is non-naturalistic, costume may be more symbolic, exaggerated, or uniform. For example, a group piece about social pressure might dress all characters in identical grey jackets except one performer in a bright colour. That design choice could show isolation or rebellion. The performer in the bright costume must still be able to move, speak, and interact safely.

For set texts, always respect the text’s given circumstances unless you clearly justify a different interpretation. If a character is poor, wealthy, young, old, professional, rebellious, grieving, or part of a specific community, costume should reflect that. You can be creative, but your creativity must serve the play.

Key Point Checklist

This article has covered the following key knowledge points:

• Costume design must support performance intentions, not just look attractive.
• Performance intentions are linked to meaning, mood, theme, character, and audience response.
• Performer requirements include movement, comfort, safety, quick changes, age, role changes, and singing or dancing needs.
• In Blood Brothers, costume can show class difference between the Johnstone and Lyons families.
• Mrs Johnstone’s costume can show poverty, pressure, warmth, and premature ageing.
• Mickey and Edward’s costumes can begin with similarities and later show social separation.
• In Educating Rita, costume can contrast Rita’s energy with Frank’s tired academic world.
• Strong exam answers describe specific garments, colours, fabrics, fit, condition, and accessories.
• Costume must be tested against the performer’s actions in the scene.
• Quick changes can be supported by removable items such as jackets, hats, ties, aprons, or shoes.
• Costume can use symbolism, but symbolic choices must still be clear to the audience.
• Written responses should explain design choice, performer need, and audience impact.

Key Terms and Concepts

• Performance intention
• Characterisation
• Symbolism
• Performer requirements
• Quick change
• Silhouette
• Costume plot
• Social status