The locution costume can refer to wardrobe and dress in general, or to the distinctive style of dress of a particular people, class, or period. Costume may also refer to the artistic arrangement of accessories in a picture, statue, poem, or Sexy Costumes play, appropriate to the time, place, or other circumstances represented or described, or to a particular style of clothing worn to portray the wearer as a character or type of character other than their regular persona at a social event such as a masquerade, a deluxe dress party or in an artistic theatrical performance.

“Clothing worn in dance training generally reflects period, culture, and performance traditions” (Penrod 12). Throughout history clothing defaulter become else simplified as dance becomes more physically demanding and free. In the past, dancers would dance in gardens and halls in elaborate and expensive costumes. However, in the eighteenth century they began to dance in theaters and to “discard cumbersome garments” (Penrod 13) by training in routine clothing.