The shapes we’re in

By Isabel Lloyd

Between the echoing brick walls of a chilly studio in south-west London, four women are travelling through time. One is spinning in a crinoline in 1860, one is demonstrating a dance in 1965, one is pouting in the middle of the English Regency, and one is gliding ladylike through medieval courts. And all they’ve done is get dressed.

The women, actresses from the Royal Shakespeare Company, are playing with a rack of clothes from different periods, dug out of the bowels of the RSC’s historically completist costume department. I’ve asked them to pick a dress, try it on, and describe how it makes them feel.