Costume as a Portrait

author Diana Kosec Bourek
written by Martina Petranović

 

Not every character in a play can have 

white soles on their shoes.

 

Writing about the history of Croatian costume design implies writing about the topic which has only recently become the focus of the research interest of Croatian theatre studies. Research material includes costume sketches, photographs from plays, a few short reviews in magazines and newspapers and a couple of preserved theatre costumes which have survived the circumstances of a dynamic life of the theatre collection. Some costume designers left their mark in the genre of an interview, but most of them remained in the shadow, thinking that their art accomplishments and achievements of their profession should be represented by the costume itself and not at any time or any place, like a costume exhibition, but exactly where it belongs, in the context of a theatre play as a whole. Such a costume designer is Diana Kosec Bourek, an artist whose work greatly contributed to the shaping of Croatian costume design and the Croatian theatre of the second half of the 20th century.