[a. F. costume (in Dict. de l’Académie, 1740 pronounced costumé), a. It. costume custom, use, wont, fashion, guise, habit, manner:—L. consuētūdin-em CUSTOM. Used, by Italian artists, of guise or habit in artistic representation, and in this sense adopted in French early in 18th c. Thence transferred to manner of dressing, wearing the hair, etc., and in later times to dress.]
1. In historical art: The custom and fashion of the time to which a scene or representation belongs; the manner, dress, arms, furniture, and other features proper to the time and locality in which the scene is laid (obs.); hence, those belonging to a particular painting or sculpture.
1715. J. Richardson, Th. Paint., 52. Not only the Story, but the Circumstances … the Habits, Arms, Manners, Proportions, and the like, must correspond. This is call’d the observing the Costûme.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., App. s.v. Costume. To observe the costume, among painters, is to make every person and thing sustain the proper character.
1784. Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., xii. (1842), 213 (R.). This is hardly reconcileable to strict propriety, and the costume, of which Raffaelle was in general a good observer.
1817. Rickman, Archit. (1848), 216. The costume of these heads is often useful as a guide to the date of the building.
b. transf. in literary art.
1816. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., LXXXI. 124. Here is surely as gross a violation of the costume of manners as we find in the Achilles of Racine.
1805. Sir J. Mackintosh, Lett. to G. Philips, in Mem. (1835), I. 254 (Webster). I was extremely delighted with the poetical beauty of some passages [of the Lay of the Last Minstrel]…. The costume, too, is admirable.
1835. Sterling, Lett., in Carlyle, Life, II. ii. (1872), 97. The costume of his [Sterne’s] subjects is drawn from the familiar experience of his own time and country.
2. The mode or fashion of personal attire and dress (including the way of wearing the hair, style of clothing and personal adornment) belonging to a particular nation, class or period.
1802. Edin. Rev., I. 78. There is always a certain pleasure in contemplating the costume of a distant nation.
1809. Kendall, Trav., I. i. 4. The clergy had no canonical costume.
1814. Scott, Wav., x. A Swiss officer of the guards, who had resided some time at Paris, and caught the costume, but not the case or manner of its inhabitants. Ibid. (1818), Hrt. Midl., xxi. Her … tresses of long fair hair, which, according to the costume of the country, unmarried women were not allowed to cover with any sort of cap.
1877. Bryant, Sella, 313. In costumes of that simpler age they came.
b. The dress and ‘get-up’ of an actor or actress in representing a character in the play.
1883. Truth, 31 May, 760/2. Madame Judic changed her costume thrice.
3. Fashion or style of dress appropriate to any occasion or season; hence, dress considered with regard to its fashion or style; garb.
1818. La Belle Assemblée, XVII. 36/6. For outdoor costume.
1840. Ld. Beaconsfield, in Corr. w. Sister, 18 Feb. (1886), 152. It was generally agreed that I am never to wear any other but a Court costume.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 57. The best travelling costume.
1870. Dickens, E. Drood, xiii. The airiest costumes had been worn on these festive occasions.
1872. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 197. His costume was eccentric and affected.
b. transf. and fig.
1815. W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 20, note. Whensoever Mr. Southey issues from the press, we find him arrayed in a different costume.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxi. 268. They [birds] are already in full summer costume.
4. (with a and pl.) A complete set of outer garments; in shop parlance, a woman’s gown or ‘dress,’ as the chief piece of her costume.
1839. Ld. Beaconsfield, in Corr. w. Sister, 10 Feb. (1886), 117. She … departed in a white silk costume with border trimming of birds of paradise feathers.
1890. Daily News, 8 Jan., 7/6, Advt. Great Costume Sale. 120 Fine Melton Costumes, with Medallions, really good quality.
5. attrib. and Comb. Costume-piece, a dramatic piece in which the actors wear an historical or other costume different from that of the present time (or at least of the Victorian era.)
The dresses for a ‘costume-piece’ are provided by the manager, for a ‘modern piece’ by the actors themselves.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 8 April, 4/2. The ‘costume-composers’ of the present day … are still supreme law-givers to the majority of their sex. Ibid. (1889), 30 Nov., 7/1. What man in a Shakspearean or ‘costume’ piece would think of wearing his own hair upon his face?
