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Arcadia
written by Tom Stoppard
costume design concept by Jade Lo
with corresponding set design concept

Costume Design III, Winter 2024 (capstone project)

 Spanning both Regency-era England and the present day, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia weaves period and contemporary to investigate the relationship between past and present, chaos and order, love and loss, and what ultimately persists through time. In 1809 Derbyshire on the Sidley Park estate, Thomasina Coverly is a young girl who is wise beyond her years, and her era as it pertains to laws of math, physics, and nature. For all of her intellectual pursuits, Thomasina falters in her understanding of love versus lust as she observes relationships amongst the adults around her. Concurrently, her mother Lady Croom is involved in an ongoing battle with landscape architect Richard Noakes over proposed renovations that will transform the home’s classical gardens (the titular ‘Arcadia’) into his Romanticized, Gothic vision.

In approaching the costume design for this play, I used each character’s style of dress to bring warmth and individuality to the story. While the set design is meant to feel grand, universal, and almost allegorical, the characters are our only indication of the two time periods. I leaned into the idiosyncrasies of each character, using their costumes as an opportunity to personify the ideologies they embody in the story: Lady Croom’s pelisse and evening gown draw upon Classical architectural forms, while Chater’s jewel-toned palette and silhouettes follow the path of a growing Romantic imagination. I was also interested in finding ways to bring nature into the design, given that much of the play’s action revolves around the changing landscape of Sidley Park, yet no scenes take place in the actual garden.

I found much of my inspiration in tactile, archival materials. My design sought to honor the legacy of these records as a key to our understanding of the past, in much the same way the contemporary characters of Arcadia connect to those of 1809. In line with my focus on archival materials not only as inspiration, but as an active element of design, the palette of the Regency characters’ clothing is less saturated than it would have been in real life. Much of my research came from fashion plates of the period, and I wanted to evoke the same sense of pigments on paper having been faded with time.
rendered in watercolor, gouache & pencil on paper


© 2025 Jade K. Lo
New York, NY