Historical Costume supports and develops advanced practitioners who have the ambition to explore, challenge and redefine the relationship between a historical artefact and the redesigned and interpreted costume in a contemporary context.This course can be studied full- or part-time from October or full-time from January. MA Historical Costume engages you in the potential of performance design and garment construction to explore complex ideas some of which could stray into other areas of artistic experimentation. Students may come to the course with a background in costume, fashion, textiles or theatre/performance design or you may have studied subjects from across the humanities including arts and performance.This masters programme supports and encourages you to investigate individual practice within an interdisciplinary framework, whilst developing a critical theoretical context for your work. The very special and unique nature of course delivery, through shared lectures, seminars, critiques and tutorials encourages both a ‘freewheeling atmosphere and an intense immersion in creative practice.Whether you are interested in looking at historical influences or current socio-political issues related to dress, you will challenge the context of your study in design or historical costume construction within the broader framework of contemporary practice. The course is supported by lectures and seminars in areas of dress history, construction and design to enable you to critically reflect on, and to consider the place of your practice within the discipline. Seminar discussion with a diverse range of artists will invite critique of students work. The intense testing of work and practice in a challenging but safe arena is a particular element of the MA programme and an innate strength of the learning process that is engendered at the Graduate School.Areas of expertise within the course team include: Historical Costume Construction, Costume Design Skills, Scenography and Dress History.The exciting potential of this course is the ability to experiment and innovate whilst you hone your skills as a maker or designer. It fosters originality and creativity in the application of techniques of enquiry, research and making. It locates your practice in the interdisciplinary and global context, be it theoretically based in historical research and analysis or on a live production involving the transformation of costume design from page to stage.