Costume design
Costume Design
c.1947 (designed)
c.1947 (designed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This design is for a show-girl's costume in a revue produced by ENSA, or the Entertainments National Service Association, probably in about 1947. Glamorous numbers with exotic dancers were a popular aspect of the light-hearted wartime revues frequently produced at the time at London's Windmill Theatre, in West End theatres, and around the country. Ronald Cobb was something of a specialist in witty designs for show-girls' costumes, and in the early 1950s produced even more elaborate designs for costumes at the London nightclubs Eve's and Murray's Cabaret Club.
This design would have been for a show produced by John C. Mather, who devised his first show to entertain the Kinross Home Guards in his home town of Kinross, near Perth, Scotland, in 1941. He went on to become a producer for ENSA shows which travelled to garrison theatres in the United Kingdom and where British troops were stationed abroad.
This design would have been for a show produced by John C. Mather, who devised his first show to entertain the Kinross Home Guards in his home town of Kinross, near Perth, Scotland, in 1941. He went on to become a producer for ENSA shows which travelled to garrison theatres in the United Kingdom and where British troops were stationed abroad.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Costume design (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour on cartridge paper |
| Brief description | Costume design for a Russian-style glamour girl in a war-time show produced by John C. Mather for ENSA. Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour and bodycolour by Ronald Cobb, c.1947. Given by Rose-Mary McClory. |
| Physical description | Costume design of a Russian-style glamour girl, a dark-haired girl standing, full-length, wearing a wearing a white Russian-style military coat embroidered with gold frogging, the neckline plunging to a cleavage, clinched in at the waist with a pink sash and trimmed at the hem with a border of white fur. She wears a very tall white hat trimmed with a white veil and a gold star, and she holds a long scimitar in both hands across the front of her body. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions | 'DESIGNED AND PAINTED BY RONALD COBB' (Stamped in top right-hand corner underneath the monogram 'RAC' within a rectangular frame.) |
| Credit line | Given by Rose-Mary McClory |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This design is for a show-girl's costume in a revue produced by ENSA, or the Entertainments National Service Association, probably in about 1947. Glamorous numbers with exotic dancers were a popular aspect of the light-hearted wartime revues frequently produced at the time at London's Windmill Theatre, in West End theatres, and around the country. Ronald Cobb was something of a specialist in witty designs for show-girls' costumes, and in the early 1950s produced even more elaborate designs for costumes at the London nightclubs Eve's and Murray's Cabaret Club. This design would have been for a show produced by John C. Mather, who devised his first show to entertain the Kinross Home Guards in his home town of Kinross, near Perth, Scotland, in 1941. He went on to become a producer for ENSA shows which travelled to garrison theatres in the United Kingdom and where British troops were stationed abroad. |
| Associated objects |
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| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.177-2007 |
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| Record created | November 7, 2007 |
| Record URL |
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