Entwined In The Fabric

Entwined in the Fabric is an online exhibition from The Hunt Museum. It uses the images and the costumes from Best Costume Goes To... a collaborative exhibition with the Irish Costume Association Project (ICAP), whose collection is represented here. Clicking on the images takes you through to the full credits.

The techniques used by costume designers and makers are inventive and varied. From research on the period, to the sourcing of materials and the aging or enhancing of a costume, costume design is much more than the copy of a picture in a history book.

The actor uses the costume to become the character, so the costume has to embody that character.

The costume team can make new clothes look old by dying and breakdown techniques. Costumes can be ripped, bloodied, dirtied or painted to transform them into the perfect costume for the actor playing the character.

A costume has to follow the path of the film. A costume, in the course of the film may be destroyed, discarded, changed. This can mean multiple, exact copies to cope with filming takes.

Entwined in the Fabric highlights the different processes and techniques of the costume department, using many of the Irish Costume Archive Project (ICAP) costumes exhibited in ‘Best Costume Goes To…’ staged at the Hunt Museum.

The costume designer has a team of costume makers to make the designs they have created, including makers with skills in ageing, knitting, embroidery, leather work and other techniques.



‘One of my favourite things in the workshop which went from Tudors to Vikings was the fact that I had a superb leather master’. Vikings, Costume Designer Joan Bergin

The costume designer through their research will know the characters and the influences on them as much as any other member of the crew.

The costume designer’s research begins with the characters, their lives and the story to tell. This research tells the designer what clothes will convey the interplay between character and story line. Both the historical character and the feeling of a period has to be taken on board.


An understanding of social history is also important. Knowing how people lived; where they shopped; whether they made their own clothes; are their clothes new or second-hand; all contribute to being able to represent a period. Not everyone will have worn the Chanel suits of Isabelle Huppert as Greta, although some may relate to the second hand clothes worn by Brie Larson's Ma in Room.

For ‘Breakfast on Pluto’, many of the costumes for extras and crowd scenes came from a storage house in London. But at the time of filming, all the 1970s costumes that they had there were being held for the Steven Spielberg film, Munich. Stuck for the right look, Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh, walking through Rome, spotted the iconic yellow jacket.

Played by Katheryn Winnick, the legendary figure of Lagertha, fights alongside the men in shield walls. When realising Winnick's cosutmes, Joan Bergin used embroidery and Irish tweeds.

'The most surprising thing about Viking women was that they were skilled weavers and dyers. Some of their ceremonial dresses have all the artistry of a wall hanging."

The character of Lagertha, who was also a shield maiden, spent a lot of time during the shoot in battle ready attire.

For Greta (2018) Joan Bergin thought a Chanel suit would work perfectly for the restaurant scene played by Isabelle Huppert.

The actress knew Karl Lagaerfeld, the creative director of Chanel' so asked him for a loan of one for the shoot. She explained that it would be bloodied in action.


After reading the script he generously sent three. Being very petite, all three suits had to be re-cut to fit M. Huppert.

‘Portobello Road Market, one of London's notable street markets, known for its second-hand clothes and antiques’ Joan Bergin, My Left Foot

‘if you felt this fabric it almost moved in your hand’ . Joan Bergin, The Tudors

A balance is required between appropriate ageing of the clothing to reflect the character and the story line and the necessity for the clothing to remain as a working piece of costume.

Specific techniques are employed to achieve different effects. Dye may be used to give the effect of dirt without compromising the costume itself. The ageing techniques will give the impression of wear but may not degrade the costume. This can be done through paint, dye, wax or glues to add texture.

This is one of the reasons multiples of the same costumes are made as movies are not usually recorded in chronological order, requiring a number of costumes with varying degrees of change or wear.

Other ways to age a costume include this knitwear piece used in the television series ‘Nightflyers’.

It is 100% lambs wool. The piece was designed for the Captain’s wife and needed to look a little more lived in. The costume maker, Giordana Giache, created this effect by washing to shrink and matt the garment, more akin to an everyday piece of clothing.

Making the garment used a machine called a Shima Seiki. It works using a digital image of the garment, reads the program and knits it using a feeder and needles similar to a traditional knitting machine.

In ‘Room’, Ma and Jack are held captive, and the costumes had to look as if they had been chosen by their captor. The inappropriateness of the choice of clothing, conveying the horror of their situation.

Part of the ageing of this costume came from the second hand sourcing of the clothes as well as distressing techniques.

Tools such as a comb like shredder are used to wear down the fibers of the fabric or airbrushing with paint to give the illusion of dirt and wear. And sandpaper was used to further wear the denim.

Leather armour worn by Ben Robson in the television series ‘Vikings’ (2013-) used the processes of stamping and moulding.

Vikings were known for the level of pattern and design on almost all of their armour, weapons and ships. Some of that detail went into this costume with embossed patterns and strips of leather laced through ridges going around the body horizontally.

‘Men and women of the Jarls were well groomed with neat hairstyles and expressed their wealth and status by wearing expensive clothes (often silk) and well crafted jewellery like brooches, belt buckles, necklaces and arm rings. Almost all of the jewellery was crafted in specific designs’ Joan Bergin. Vikings.

Ireland has been and is a driving force in costume design. The Quiet Man,
Michael Collins, Braveheart, Breakfast On Pluto, In Bruges have become iconic symbols of Irish film, with considerable impact on the industry worldwide.

Troy studios, Limerick, is the latest addition to a booming Irish film industry. This, in turn, has led to a growing costume design sector and a number of award winning designers.