cult ro ascerrain how the cosruming of the live acror is approached. Many exhibits conrained large numbers of arrful and loosely rendered cosrume sketches and few phorographs of cosrumed acrors or three dimensional pieces ro show the final producr. It is personally imporranr ro me ro understand how we do things differently from and similarly ro designers in other culrures. It is always difficult ro assess the design work itself and compare it ro our own expectations or approaches unless the work is known. It is possible ro see what might be different in a Japanese interpretation of Harold and Maude from a single phoro and extrapolate from there. Or we can understand what was done with anything by Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekov or the Greeks. We can see national tastes and tendencies that are consistent in design choices for plays we know. But it becomes impossible ro sort our what was done or why with a new or obscure play not known outside its country of origin. National exhibits that largely featured plays not generally known or produced were therefore difficult ro pur inro any kind of conrexr. We are not always able ro assess the nature of the inrerpretation and judge how this might differ from the general range of approach that would be familiar to us in our own culrural conrexr. I suspect that the differences seen in cosrume rendering techniques may suggest something about differences in working methods and how theatres are structured. I believe that to a large extent American designers tend ro do renderings more for the shop than to create an impressionistic statement of the costume. We tend ro render for clarity of information. I am suggesting only that this tendency has developed out of necessity. A large number of American designers work on several shows at once and are not often in residence at anyone theatre for the entire pre-production period. Clarity of rendering for communication purposes has become very imporranr in order ro help the designer communicate ro the shop what is wanted in the clearest way possible. I believe the tendency ro view the sketch primarily as a rool for communication ro be a fearure of how we work in order ro get the resulrs we intend. Economic conditions (the need ro work several shows at once) have influenced the development of a style of rendering we tend ro use, if not prefer. By contrast, many of the national displays presenred costume renderings