For this project from the 3rd year of my degree, we had to design for the characters from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I chose to design the costumes for this comedy for the period it was written. I included William Morris prints in most of the costumes, as Wilde was a fan of his, as well as of the Aesthetic movement. Morris’ prints lend themselves to the bright and visually fun costumes that add to the already established tongue-in-cheek language and humorous antics of the characters on stage. Each of the enlarged prints would be and painted onto the cloth to lend to the audience’s understanding that this world, and the characters in it, are artificial, and superficial. For details of the design process for this project please see my blog post on the subject.

click on the images to see a larger version