Continuities and new directions in costume studies

This issue of Studies in Costume and Performance ( SCP ) reaffirms the journal’s commitment to costume as a rigorous, interdisciplinary field, positioning costume as constitutive of meaning, agency and lived experience across design, production, reception and archival afterlives. The issue foregrounds how preliminary research published in the journal develops into substantial scholarly contributions, demonstrating how the journal nurtures new voices and advances the field. The Book Reviews section traces trajectories from early articles to monographs and edited volumes on performative costuming and live art (Leigh Bowery), costume’s material culture (Lea Anderson) and costumers’ invisible labour through an ethnography of professional costume workrooms in Australia. Building on SCP ’s recent Special Issue on ‘Film and Television’, this volume also includes studies that reconceive cinematic costume in Vietnamese historical cinema amid cultural controversy, and analyses of Malayalam cinema where costume negotiates visibility, containment and normalization of queer identity. Articles interrogate institutional frames and value, including a critical history of the Best Costume Design category at the Academy Awards, and a research report on a single garment from The Shining illuminates provenance, authorship and production ecosystems. The issue further expands global pedagogical discourse via a study of a practice-based, circular and ecological methodology rooted in the Global South. Event reviews evaluate a museum exhibition on historical costume balls in Canada and a major international performance design event in Sharjah, highlighting sustainability, heritage, technological innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Together, these contributions attest to the vitality of contemporary costume research and the journal’s sustained cultivation of critical dialogue and scholarly community.