Costume design by Andy Klunder for Wayne Eagling in Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Gloria for The Royal Ballet, 1980. Wayne Eagling was one of the two leading men. His role, a far-sighted, angry and threatening figure, is at the heart of the ballet.

Gloria was choreographed by MacMillan for The Royal Ballet to Francis Poulenc's 'Gloria in G minor'. It opened at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, on 13 March 1980. Klunder also designed the set and the original lighting was by Bill Besant. Described as 'a meditation upon death’s harvest in the First World War’ (Clement Crisp,1980), Gloria is one of Kenneth MacMillan’s most important works, danced by companies internationally and likely to stand the test of time as a significant ballet. At its premiere, the Illustrated London News, May 1980, noted that the mood of the ballet ‘is enormously aided by the brilliant and imaginative designs’. The Theatre and Performance collection at the V&A owns costumes for male and female dancers in Gloria.

The men’s costumes are all-over lycra tights, incorporating incisions with the spaces in-filled from the reverse to suggest disintegration. They are hand painted and dyed in tones of grey, rust brown and red with a veined design. The headdresses are skull-caps with brim and chinstrap to resemble World War I helmets, painted and dyed to match the rest of the costume.

The costumes were made by Zeta of Switzerland and painted and dyed by Covent Garden. The headdresses were made by Vin Burnham.

MacMillan’s immediate source of inspiration for a ballet on the 1914-1918 Great War was Vera Brittain’s autobiography, Testament of Youth, which had been televised as a series in 1979. It is a reflection on the futility of all wars. A poem from Testament of Youth, ‘The War Generation: Ave’, is quoted in the programme whenever Gloria is performed. The original programme also included the text of Poulenc’s contrasting 'Gloria in G'
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While MacMillan intended Gloria to be an elegy for young lives cut short or blighted by war but it can also be interpreted as a testament to his Scottish father, who had been gassed in the First World War. MacMillan’s father suffered the after-effects for the rest of his life and never spoke of his experience in the trenches.

MacMillan briefed Klunder, to look at photographs and paintings of the Great War, as well as memorial sculpture. The set is a skeletal metal frame with entrances and exits over a ramp at the back of the stage. The men in ‘tin helmets’ resemble soldiers whose camouflage uniforms, and flesh, are rotted and disintegrating. The women are dressed in silver-grey, with coiled ear-muffs that make them seem ghosts from a far-off past.

The two principal women embody aspects of Vera Brittain and all women who have suffered the loss of loved ones in wartime: one is the fearless girl, the other the woman in mourning. Brittain lost her brother and her lover in the war. The two principal men in the ballet are brothers-in-arms, unknown warriors; the one angrier, the other more accepting. One survives the other, only to drop out of sight beneath the ramp on the last notes of the music. The dancers are all anonymous and none of the characters are given names. The corps de ballet of women and soldiers serve as ritual celebrants, circling the stage at the beginning and end of the ballet. The four soloists are the personal expression of their anonymous suffering, dancing to the Latin words of the Catholic Mass extolling God’s mercy. The leading man, who points at the audience during his last, defiant solo, accuses passive spectators of acquiescing in death and destruction.