Costumier

Press, Volume C, Issue 29454, 4 March 1961, Page 3

Costumier

Costumes By Nathan. By Archie Nathan. Newnes. 194 p.p.

Nearly two hundred years of service to the community in a specialised and exacting trade is a proud record to hold, and Mr Nathan very properly claims a good deal of credit for his family in having during that time supplied Society and the Theatre with period costumes to suit their every requirement. The founder of the firm, Lewis Nathan, had a tailoring business in Tichbome street, and in 1790 initiated the idea of hiring out clothes for theatrical productions, and reclaiming them, with the appropriate payment at the close of the run. As play-producing at that time was an even more hazardous undertaking than it is now the firm stood to loose both the clothes and the money, but usually succeeded in salvaging the former. In 1843, the author’s grandfather, Lewis Jacob Nathan took command of the business, and his son. John Lewis, building on solid foundations of reliability, became in his turn the presiding genius, and the architect of its presentday fortunes. His son Archie had been trained in Forestry, but abandoned this profession to join the family business (at a starting salary of 5/- a week) which he now runs in partnership with his brother Victor, and his nephew John.

In its long history the firm has dressed most of the famous figures on the stage as well as Royalty and the aristocracy for their private theatrical frolics, of which a favourite form in Victorian days was the. Tableau Vivant. The pages of the book are filled with anecdotes—some of them tantalisingly incompltet —of notabilities and furnishes a survey of theatrical history. The accuracy of detail required in a costumier’s profession is such that it must never fall down on a detail of dress, nor the time schedule allowed for delivery, which means that every member has to be on his toes in his particular department. It says a great deal for Nathan’s then that so many of their staff have been with them so long —some as much as fifty years.

The book is very fully illustrated with photographs of famous stage personalities from Mrs Langtry and Sir Herbert Tree to a comic group comprising Danny Kaye, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Unfortunately, perhaps, Mr Nathan’s goodwill is so abundant that the book abounds in laudatory adjectives which cumulatively become very wearisome to read. But if he is too diffuse as a writer the matter of which he writes is of social and historical significance. x