Costume designs by Alison Chitty for Billie Whtielaw as Nelly Mann in Christopher Hampton's Tales from Hollywood, National Theatre 1983. Pencil and watercolour with fabric sample

Sheet of six full length female figures: far left wearing black straight skirt and red-orange short checked blouse, mid left a belted v-necked, short-sleeved day dress with all-over pattern in red, pink and green, with revers collar and cuffs, holding a glass in one hand, the other with a blue glove holding a black handbag; centre left, a belted whiteish dress, gathered between the breasts, and with broad shoulder-straps; centre right: a long-sleeved belted day dress with v-neck and pink decoration; mid right a grey sprigged day dress with v-neck and revers collar, short cuffed sleeves and blue belt, with a cardigan over the right arm; right: a dressing gown with all-over bold poppies and foliage, edged in black.
Fixed over the far left figure is a drawing of an evening dress in red-orange, sleeveless with cross-over, v-plunge neckline. Over the centre and mid right dresses is fixed a sheet on which are, centre right, a plain v-necked cross-over belted day dress with short sleeves with cuffs and mid right a straight day-dress with red belt, v-neck with collar and cap sleeves, holding a red handbag and, in the other gloved hand, keys. Stapled to the top of the sheet is a sample of black fabric.

Given by Alison Chitty

The designs were created by Alison Chitty for Billie Whitelaw as Nelly Mann in Christopher Hampton's play Tales from Hollywood at the National Theatre in 1983.

Christopher Hampton's play Tales from Hollywood, produced at the National Theatre in 1983, spans a period from 1938 to 1950. While the costumes of a century ago are easy to distill into a form acceptable to audiences, designing costumes from a past that lies within living memory presents more problems. However, by 1983, the costumes of the late 1930s and 1940s were just far enough away from the 1980s as to no longer seem dowdy or old fashioned, and were beginning to take on the aura of nostalgia. In Alison Chitty's designs the period feel lay less in the cut and silhouette of the costumes than in the details - the width of shoulder straps, the peep-toe shoes, the length of sleeves with cuffs, the type of belt and the choice of fabrics. Designing such productions may seem less exciting than the spectacular or fantastical, but creating believable costumes for the characters to inhabit calls for no less imaginative skill.

S.1409-1986