"Great minds don't always think alike": Advocating for a Collaborative Approach to Interpreting and Re-constructing Historic Theatre Costume

This paper highlighted the important role that collaboration can play in unpicking the multiple meanings historic costumes carry in their fibres. Taking a project to rigorously recreate the costume actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928) wore as Imogen in the 1896 production of Cymbeline as its focal point, it demonstrated the cumulative knowledge and deeper understanding gained through uniting a range of specialist skillsets to examine and document a single garment. In this instance, as the paper showed, bringing together the triumvirate of maker, conservator and researcher has not only facilitated a re-consideration of the on-stage life of this costume, but also illuminated its original construction, and complex afterlives.