Sartorial Remembrance: Exploring the Weave Between Costume, Memory, and the Performing Self

Clothing can seem easily distinguishable from the person that wears it. This seems largely due to the material differences between embodied self and cloth: one being flesh, the other made by human hands, an artifice added to the surface of the self. As much is suggested by British actor Peter Brown's recollection of wearing theatrical costume, in the epigraph beginning this article: he describes the putting on and removal of costume as a ritual facilitating entry into and exit from a character. Clothing and character are here enfolded, a collapse signified by Brown's subsequent remark that "you do not want to take [certain characters] home with you. It's best to leave them in the dressing room" (2016).