Costume as bridge: The hoodie’s potential to connect audiences with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities

In this article Cisneros and Lingham explore the work costume does when representing Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) people and communities on stage and screen. Their inquiry offers insight into a touring stage production called Crystal’s Vardo, which uses dance, drama, humour and music to share the rich culture and diverse histories of GRT communities. Using this work as a case study, the aim of this article is to recognize and understand how costume interconnects audiences and actors in a play that explores GRT history, the effects of systemic racism, prejudices and the social and political issues that GRT people face. As authors from two distinct backgrounds, Cisneros and Lingham come together to unpick the costume realization process through quite distinctive lenses, focusing on the hoodie as a site to explore issues concerning self-representation and think about new ways of designing-making-using costume.