Gloria was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan for The Royal Ballet to Francis Poulenc, Gloria in G minor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 13 March 1980. Andy Klunder also designed the set and costumes and the original lighting was by Bill Besant. Descibed as ‘’a meditation upon death’s harvest in the First World War’ (Crisp 1980) is one of Kenneth MacMillan’s most important ballets danced by companies internationally and likely to stand the sets 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 T&P collection at the V&A owns a costumes for a man in Gloria acquired for a man and a woman.

The women’s costumes areall-over lycra tights but in whites, blues, greys and silvers with floating chiffon knee-length skirts in panels from the hips. On their heads they wear stylised wigs with their hair coiled over their ears. Their make-up is pale and shimmering suggesting that they were insubstantial memories. John Percival in The Times 14/03/1980 noted that ‘Andy Klunder, has dressed the the dancers in greys and gingery browns. The men wear helmets shaped like tin hats; their tights are textured so that they look flayed. The women’s skirts hang in shreds like shrouds.’

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

Gloria grew out Kenneth MacMillan's reading of Vera Britten's Testament of Youth and watching war films, notably All Quiet on the Western Front. Translating the horrors of war into balletic terms (and strict classical ballet at that) could have produced a tasteless or embarassingly comic work, but MacMillan's intention was not a realistic depiction of war, but a meditation on death and its emotional resonance. The design problem was to suggest dead fighting men without individualising them. MacMillan and designer Andy Klunder avoided extreme realism to suggest a deeper and more universal experience. In the austere, bleak setting of no-man's-land, all the male figures are visually linked not by army uniforms, but by uniform lacerated body tights in colours that suggested earth, mud and blood, the muted lines like drained blood vessels or exposed nerves. The inserted panels, revealed by the cut-away top layer, were painted to match, and from the audience gave the impression was of wounds or rotting flesh. The choreography and design were set in almost ironic contrast to the uplifting, joyous music - François Poulenc's Gloria.Pale grey bodysuit, worn by a female dancer in Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Gloria.