COSTUME CHANGERS

Sci-fi secret agent apparel becomes pirate of the high seas finery when Arts University Bournemouth Costume & Design students combine sustainability with eco-style for a special staging of Treasure Island

- Jeremy Miles

Eighty years after the Make Do and Mend philosophy helped save Britain during the dark days of the Second World War, sustainability is back on the national agenda big time.

This time it’s about saving the world. With climate change threatening our very future we are all urged to reduce the impact of our carbon footprint. Whether it is by taking fewer flights, reducing the amount of plastic we use or simply recycling wherever and whenever possible, every little helps.

Here in Dorset, costume design students at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) are, like most of their generation, acutely aware of international eco-concerns. But they are better versed than many about the specific issues facing the fashion and clothing industries. According to Rachel Strauss, leader of the national Zero Waste campaign, an incredible £140 million worth of clothes end up in landfill every year. And that includes a significant number of theatrical costumes.

As Wayne Martin, senior lecturer on the BA Costume and Performance Design course at AUB says: “There may not be much money in theatre but there's an awful lot of waste.” Now his students, based on the university’s Talbot campus, are doing their bit to ensure that their work practices are at the forefront of cutting the amount of material that ends up needlessly dumped.

Over the past couple of months the department has been creating costumes for Bryony Lavery’s radical new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate adventure Treasure Island. The show, first staged to great acclaim at the National Theatre, is now heading for Lighthouse in Poole.