Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2011 - 74

book

reviews
The Magic Garment

Principles of Costume Design, Second Edition

By Rebecca Cunningham; Long Grove, IL, Waveland Press, 2009. 422 pp. Paper, $48.95.
Reviewed by Holly Monsos
The first edition of Rebecca Cunningham's
The Magic Garment has been widely adopted
by costume design instructors in schools all
over the country since it was first published in
1989. I discovered it in the mid 1990s when
I was looking for a book to replace the text
I had been using, Douglas Russell's venerable
Stage Costume Design: Theory, Technique
and Style, which had gone out of print years
back and was no longer readily available even
as a used book. My well-thumbed copy of The
Magic Garment now has bookmarks and
sticky notes poking out from every edge, which
gives you a good idea of how much I have used
it since then.
When I sat down to start working on this
review, I plucked my copy of the first edition
off the shelf. I compared the contents pages of
the two editions and discovered that this edition follows the same chapter order as the first
but has two new ones as well: Designing for
Film and Preparing for a Costume Design Career. Promising! A quick check revealed that
the film chapter was contributed by Holly Cole,
who teaches at Ohio University and who has
been working and presenting in this area for
several years. (Cunningham herself teaches at
Brooklyn College.) Even more promising!
Comparing the two editions, I immediately noticed that many (indeed, most) of the
illustrations in the text have been updated with
fresh and relevant examples from designers
who work in academe, Broadway, and regional
theatre, as well as a number of non-U.S.-based
designers. There are now also computer-aided
rendering examples included within the wide
variety of rendering techniques and styles Cunningham uses to illustrate key points of the
text. I was pleased that the number of photo
captions that include an explanation of what
exactly the pictured costume or rendering
is illustrating in relation to the text has now
increased to almost every illustration in the
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& technology

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book. Another bonus is a second set of color
plates, which include additional renderings
for analysis as well as material relevant to the
new chapters.

Clear and complete
The majority of the text has changed very little
and remains a clear and complete explanation of the myriad aspects of costume design.
Where changes have been made, it is primarily
to include the many ways in which the digital
age has modified and/or added to what the
costume designer does on a daily basis. For
example, in the chapter on research, a discussion of the appropriate use of Internet searching has been added to the section explaining
primary and secondary sources. There are
also clear and repeated cautions about the
re-use of digital images obtained through the
research process. Other new material includes
the addition of interviews with six awardwinning costume designers. These "conversations" provide wonderful insights into the
creative process of designing and reveal how
unique each designer's process can be.
The two new chapters are a wonderful
addition to the book and make this edition
even more valuable than the first. Cole's chapter on working in film paints a clear and detailed picture of what it's like to costume for
the camera and what it takes to succeed in this
similar-and yet completely different-field.
Beginning designers with an interest in careers
in this area and established designers looking
to expand what they do to include the film and
television industry will both find much to guide
and aid them here.
The new chapter on preparing for a career is equally useful. Previously the book
ended with a quick two-page summary on
portfolios and résumés. The new chapter
spends nine pages just on résumés, explaining their important components and showing

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2011