Dress and the fabric of the television series: The costume designer as author in Dr. Who

Journal of Design History

Volumn 12, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 345-356

  Britton, Piers D G ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Design; Dress; Hudson, June; Ideology; Psychology of design; Television

Indexed keywords

EID: 62649163205     PISSN: 09524649     EISSN: 17417279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jdh/12.4.345     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. J. Tulloch & M. Alvarado, Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, Macmillan, 1983.
2. See D. Rogers, The Complete Avengers, Boxtree, 1989, pp. 84-7.
3. See, inter alia, B. Heisner, Hollywood Art: Art Direction in the Days of the Great Studios, St. James Press, 1990;
4. V. LoBrutto, By Design: Interviews with Film Production Designers, Praeger, 1992;
5. D. Neumann (ed.), Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner, Prestel, 1996.
6. S. Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies, Routledge, 1997.
7. The design work of each of these men has been afforded lavish, monographic treatment: C. Castle, Oliver Messel: A Biography, Thames & Hudson, 1986
8. and C. Spencer, Cecil Beaton: Stage and Film Designs, Academy Editions, 2nd edn., 1994.
9. Acheson was costume designer on Gilliam's Brazil and Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
10. Clifford Hatts, interview with the author, June 1995.
11. R. Levin, Television by Design, The Bodley Head, 1961. There is a half-page section with the subheading 'Costume Design' (p. 22), and the 'costume supervisor' is mentioned again, as a collaborator to the 'Designer' (p. 72); there are no costume credits.
12. Barry Newbery, former BBC designer, interview with the author, January 1995.
13. The fullest newspaper account of costume design for the Avengers movie is in D. Gritten Hepperton, 'A Decidedly British Accent', in the LA Times, 24 November 1997;
14. the release of the movie also prompted an encomium on costume design in the original series: B. Stanley, 'World class', in the Guardian: The Guide, 8 August 1998.
15. This is true not only of Tulloch & Alvarado, op. cit., but also of M. Alvarado & J. Stewart (eds.), Made for Television: Euston Films Limited, BFI, London, 1985, which principally concerns The Sweeney;
16. T. Miller, The Avengers, BFI, London, 1997;
17. and C. Gregory, 'Be Seeing You': Decoding The Prisoner, University of Luton Press, 1997.
18. Miller, op. cit., p. 41.
19. D. Buxton, From The Avengers to Miami Vice: Form and Ideology in Television Series, Manchester University Press, 1990.
20. Buxton, op. cit., p. 73.
21. Cited in Rogers, op. cit., p. 90.
22. Buxton, op. cit., p. 20.
23. Bruzzi, op. cit., p. xvi.
24. J. Fiske, 'Popularity and ideology: a structuralist reading of Dr. Who', in W. Rowland & B. Watkins, Interpreting Television: Current Research Perspectives, Sage, 1984, pp. 165-98.
25. Revelation, 17, iv.
26. June Hudson, interview with the author, November 1993.
27. June Hudson, interview with the author and Simon Barker, October 1994.
28. BBC TV, 1980.
29. Dee Robson, interview with the author and Simon Barker, May 1995.
30. See, for example, S. Pinker, How the Mind Works, Allen Lane, 1997, passim but especially pp. 69-70 and 88-90, where Pinker elucidates part of his theory of a fundamental mental language, 'mentalese'.
31. Fiske, op. cit., p. 165.
32. I made a survey of humanoid enemies confronted by Tom Baker's Doctor between 1974 and 1981: of more than thirty, only ten wore black (and three wore white!).
33. Tom Baker, interview with the author, September 1995.
34. June Hudson, interview with the author, June 1995.