MA Historical Costume

The distinctive features of MA Historical Costume at AUB include:

• Range of historical costume directions supported by the programme: the integration of design, costume making, and heritage means students are given the opportunity to experience a wide range of historical costume research and to see how their own interests and costume outcomes can be located in the discipline.
• Diversity of staff research and expertise: students are given the opportunity to work with staff at the forefront of several historical costume disciplines, to foster interdisciplinary projects and outputs. Students are also encouraged to benefit from staff expertise on the Costume BA, with several collaboration opportunities.
• Ability to integrate live projects into Master's’ Level research: this provides students with a real-world experience of projects that will be invaluable to future career aspirations, and the opportunity to see how rigorous research can be integrated into live projects.
• Collaboration within the student cohort: students benefit from working directly alongside other Master's’ students with a diverse range of interests, often collaborating directly with one another.

The MA Historical Costume course is structured around three 60-credit units, as consecutive and equally weighted phases of study:

• Master's 1: Exploration
• Master's 2: Development
• Master's 3: Progression

Master's 1: Exploration

This unit exposes you to the sweep of different historical costume directions covered by the course. You'll be offered a lecture course outlining the basic shape of historical costume across a range of time periods and geographical contexts, and a variety of different workshops on subjects that may include archival research, basic sewing skills, fabric choice, pattern cutting, and design for film. To support the development of individual interests, you're asked to complete a series of short responses to set briefs in this unit, which will enable you to explore different areas of historical costume and experiment with different forms of costume practice. At the end of this unit, you're asked to think about developing a research area and project to carry forward into Master's 2: Development, and Master's 3: Progression.

Master's 2: Development

In this unit, you'll have identified a specific area of interest that's linked to a historical and geographical costume and will develop a research portfolio and creative response to this costume form based on one of the areas of historical costume encountered in Master's 1: Exploration. You'll also be expected to engage with academic literature surrounding your chosen area, and to engage with theoretical and contextual reading on costume in general; this is facilitated through seminar teaching. Using an individualised Learning Agreement, you'll establish an appropriate outcome for this module with tutors, which will normally comprise written research and some creative output.

Master's 3: Progression

For most students, this unit will follow the same research area as Master's 2: Development, with more emphasis on creative output and professional development. You're supported in this unit to link your projects to your future work in industry or to research, and to work on live projects as well as your own independent projects. As with the previous unit, students and tutors will make use of the individualised Learning Agreement to determine the desired outcomes from each project. At the conclusion of the Master's 3 unit, you'll have the opportunity to display or present your work in an appropriate professional context. For example, this could be an exhibition, website, show, screening, or publication.

Over the course of the three units, you should develop a body of work that'll establish yourself as an advanced, skilful, and reflective practitioner in historical costume, ready to proceed to a professional context or further research. In each unit, you'll develop a reflective written component alongside their body of creative work to aid their evaluation of their learning journeys and processes.

The undergraduate courses – BA (Hons) Costume and BA (Hons) Design for Costume and Performance – are two of the leading courses in the UK specialising in costume construction, set and costume design (Scenography) and film costume design skills. These specialist areas of study also contribute to the quality and breadth of practitioners that Master's students in MA Historical Costume have the opportunity to meet and engage with within the studio, seminar and lecture theatre.

All staff within the course team act as senior members of practice led societies including the Performance Design Educators Collective (PDEC) and The Society of British Theatre Design (SBTD) as well as USITT.

The MA Historical Costume course enjoys the company of leading academics including emeritus professor scenographer Professor Pamela Howard, OBE, author of What is Scenography? (2002, 2009 and 2019), Oscar-winning designer; AUB Honorary Fellows Jenny Beavan, OBE (designer of The King's Speech, Sherlock Holmes and Cranford); and leading costume maker Jane Law. The course also regularly invites leading TV costume designer Claire Collins, designer for the BBC studios production Sister Boniface and Father Brown, to talk to our students. There may also be the opportunity to learn from work placement opportunities during the course.