Abstract

This article provides an insight into my final-year project, Perfume, created as part of the Costume with Textiles course at the University of Huddersfield, comprising the design and construction of a costume for a theatre adaptation of Patrick Süskind’s novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Initially, the analysis of the underlying literature, i.e. the script and its key themes, including the motives of identity and scent, built the foundation for the project Perfume. Additional literature research into cultural, historical and artistic influences, as well as practical experiments, influenced the design, textile and making process of a costume that uniquely unites both eighteenth-century period construction and interactive technology. Ultimately, the costume construction reaches completion in its final disintegration. This article explores this alleged contradiction and, as a result, the modifications necessary to make my project work in a practical theatre context. Despite these conflicts, the project succeeds in combining traditional and new craftsmanship, bridging the fields of costume, art and technology in an innovative way.

Keywords

design, textile, disintegration, sensory perception, performance, drama, scent, costume

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