BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance

BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance is a design-led course that puts the costumed, performing body at the centre of your creative practice. The course offers hands-on training in historical, contemporary and experimental costume and performance design.

During your studies, you’ll also work closely alongside students from the BA (Hons) Costume, Film Production, Make-up for Media and Performance and Acting courses on live theatre productions, student films, outdoor festival events and installations.

All undergraduate courses at AUB offer an optional placement year, to be taken between your second and third years of study.

If you’re unsure about this optional placement, you don’t need to decide now.

Once you’re here and studying with us, the course team will discuss the placement options with you, so when the time comes, you can make a decision that’s right for you.

Students on BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance have the chance to broaden their horizons through exciting exchange and international summer programmes. These opportunities allow you to study abroad at one of our brilliant partner institutions, experience different cultures, and enhance your academic journey.

First-year DCP Core Skills units are focused on three strands of your development as a designer: 1) Designing for performance; 2) Skills for creating and realising designs; and 3) Designing costume for the screen.

Level 4 sessions include life drawing, costume design processes and scale modelmaking. You’ll explore essential, design-led 3D costume construction skills and learn about contextual and cultural issues related to costume, dress, performance design and representation.

In the first year, you’ll develop a realised Performance Design based on the study of a text. You’ll also produce a full set of sampled costume designs and a scale model.

You’ll learn about the role of the costume designer in the film and TV industry and develop your critical and academic skills through a series of research and writing tasks.

Level 5 DCP is all about helping you develop as an independent creative designer with high aesthetic standards and strong technical ability.

The year begins with the Historical Design unit, a design project based on a historical text that allows you to create a set model and costume designs based on primary research. You’ll also get to grips with a range of industry-standard digital design platforms.

In the L5 Critical Contexts unit, you’ll develop your contextual cultural knowledge and academic essay writing skills, in preparation for your final-year Research Dissertation.

Throughout the year, you’ll attend industry masterclasses and explore film, TV, theatre, site-specific design, festival design, carnival and puppetry.

In the Design-Led Practice unit, you’ll bring all these skills together, while the Creative Projects unit looks specifically at costume design for film through a series of in-depth film analysis lectures and associated creative workshops.

Our Level 6 (third year) focus is on "doing it for real". The final year requires students to define the direction of their practice for the remainder of their studies. This year, you'll also refine your interpersonal skills and professional behaviours in a way that reflects industry expectations.

BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance graduates go on to work in every area of the performance industries, as film costume designers, as well as performance designers in theatre, circus and festivals. Graduates have also been able to use the transferable skills they learn on the DCP course in a wide range of other employment settings, including all levels of education, visual merchandising, marketing, arts administration and event production.

In the Production Practice unit, you’ll get to choose from a range of supported, independent projects, which could include designing for live film, theatre and site-specific performance, or working up designs for festivals, installations and exhibitions. You'll have opportunities to develop and realise costumes and set design for an AUB Productions stage play performed by BA (Hons) Acting students, or to design costumes for graduate films produced by BA (Hons) Film Production.

The third year also includes opportunities for industry work placements, working alongside our many professional partners in film, TV and performance.

In the Research Dissertation unit, you’ll write a 5,000-word academic essay based on your own practice in context. We also offer Inclusive Assessment options for students with specific learning styles such as dyslexia, as an alternative to the academic essay.

The Major Project unit develops your professional skills by working on a production or film project that feeds directly into your graduating portfolio. We make sure that when you graduate, you have an effective, professional web presence and promotional materials in Design for Costume and Performance that showcase your work across a range of platforms and boosts your contacts and employability.

You’ll also curate your work as part of the graduate summer exhibitions in Bournemouth and London, subject to competition.

• Winner | BBC's Stitch Please! 2022 – Katherine Haynes
• Winner | Brancott Estate World of Wearable Art Awards, New Zealand
• Finalist | Costume Society Patterns of Fashion Award 2019
• Silver | Podium Awards, Creative Cultural Project Award
• Bronze | Podium Awards, Successful Student-led Activity
• Highly Commended | Costume Society Patterns of Fashion Award 2018

Course awards – Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education (2016–18) for ‘Distinguished degree level education in costume design for the UK’s leading creative industries’ (BA (Hons) Costume and Performance Design).

Students also have opportunities to participate in the following national and international competitions, exhibitions and symposia.

• National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image/Kodak Awards
• Costume Society Patterns for Performance Awards
• UK Student Delegation, Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space
• World Stage Design
• Dorset Art Prize

We've been teaching costume design for film and performance since 1992, and theatre set design since 2008. From 1992–2020, this was via a combined course: BA (Hons) Costume and Performance Design (CaPD).

In 2017, our CaPD Design curriculum won the Queens Anniversary Prize for ‘distinguished degree-level education in costume design for the UK’s leading creative industries.’

In 2020, CaPD evolved into two new specialist AUB courses:

• Making-led: BA (Hons) Costume
• Design-led: BA (Hons) Performance Design and Film Costume (PDFC)

The first BA (Hons) Performance Design and Film Costume cohort graduated in 2023, and already our alumni are working in some exciting professional roles, including:

• Design assistant, Oxford Playhouse
• Design assistant, Rose Bruford College

Our graduates have gone on to employment at some of the most prestigious cultural and media organisations in the world, including:

BBC | Netflix | Disney | Marvel | Amazon | Channel 4 | ITV | Pinewood Studios | HBO | Lucasfilm | Glyndebourne | Royal Opera House | The Royal Shakespeare Company | National Theatre

Our Design graduates work as:

• Costume designers for film, TV and theatre
• Assistant costume designers for film, TV and theatre
• Personal assistants to costume designers
• Theatre set designers
• Theatre designer’s assistants
• Costume illustrators for film and TV
• Crowd and costume co-ordinators for film and TV
• Wardrobe supervisors for film and TV
• Costume trainees
• Costume buyers
• Costume assistants, dailies and stand-bys for film, TV and theatre
• Breakdown artists for film, TV and theatre
• Theatre dressers
• Photographic stylists
• Scenic artists
• Event designers
• Creative producers
• Puppet designers and makers
• Festival designers and makers

Find out what some of the alumni from our previous BA (Hons) Costume and Performance Design course have gone on to do.

BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance offers regular educational trips and group opportunities*. These help you explore the cultural and professional landscapes that inform design for costume and performance at local, national and international levels.

Some past examples include:

• Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, 2023: Student participation, UK delegation
• Reimagining Musicals: Exhibition, V&A, London.
• Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams: Exhibition, V&A, London.
• Regular London fabric shopping trips.
• National Theatre backstage tours.
• Inside Out Dorset. International Festival of Outdoor Arts.
• Trips to Heritage Sites and Museums, e.g. National Trust: Kingston Lacy, Dorset/Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth.
• Site visits for outdoor theatre, e.g. Peter Pan, The Tempest Re-rigged, SISATA Open Air Theatre/B-Side Festival, Isle of Portland, 2023

*These trips are optional and some may incur additional costs

During your studies on BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance, you'll have the opportunity to attend lectures and devised workshops from some of the industry leaders and top professionals.

In the past, we've invited a variety of guests to inspire and offer practical advice on a wide range of topics within the field of performance design.

• Consolata Boyle – Consolata Boyle was born in Dublin and is a graduate of archaeology and history from University College, Dublin. After graduation, Consolata trained in set and costume design at Dublin’s legendary Abbey Theatre. Consolata is a costume designer and producer and is best known for The Iron Lady (2011), Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) and Philomena (2013).
• Jenny Beavan – Jenny is an internationally renowned costume designer for film and has received 10 Academy Award nominations, winning the Oscar for costume design for the Merchant Ivory’s adaption of Room with a View (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Numerous other films include The King’s Speech, Gosford Park and Sherlock Holmes. In 2018, Jenny received an Honorary Fellowship from the Arts University Bournemouth.
• Tamsin Fessey – Tamsin is an actor (including War Horse at the National Theatre), director, movement director, writer and puppeteer. She is also a founding member of Angel Exit Theatre Company where she has worked at times, with graduates from the course on numerous successful productions. Tamsin also loves contributing to other projects and working with other artists and has been a visiting tutor and director at the Arts University Bournemouth.
• Simon Higlett – Simon is an award-winning set and costume designer whose work has been seen worldwide. He has worked at a wide range of theatre in the UK including much work at Chichester Festival Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, Leeds Playhouse, Almedia, Donmar and in the West End. Recent work includes The Argument and A Song at Twilight at Bath Theatre Royal, and Big: The Musical and The Price in the West End.
• Catherine Kodicek – Catherine is a successful freelance costume Supervisor and was the Head of Costume at London’s Young Vic for many years. Catherine is a costume activist and founding member for the Costume organisation CITA (Costume in Theatre Association). Catherine also regularly writes for The Stage publication.
• Tom Piper – Tom is an award-winning theatre designer who has worked extensively in the UK and abroad. He was Associate Designer at the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2004 to 2014 and as well as designing shows, Tom was closely involved in the redevelopment project in Stratford and also mentored the RSC Assistant designer scheme. One of Tom’s most prominent projects was the collaboration with the ceramicist Paul Cummins, which saw thousands of giant poppies installed at the Tower of London in 2014.
• Caroline Pitcher – Caroline started her career in textiles, which led her to create costumes for the puppets on the satire show Spitting Image in the 1980s. Since then, she has predominantly designed for TV comedy including Father Ted, Green Wing, Motherland, The Inbetweeners, White Gold and Smack the Pony. Caroline is also an expert on '50s fabrics and also runs a textile and ceramics business.
• Fiona Watt – Fiona is a freelance scenographer and educator. Since 2011 Fiona has been involved in programming and running international projects as part of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space and World Stage Design. Fiona is the chair of the Society of British Theatre Designers (SBTD) and UK Performance Design Commissioner for OISTAT (International Association of Scenographers Theatre Architects and Technicians). Fiona is also the curator for Staging Places: UK Design for Performance 2016–19 at the V&A.