Sarah M Oliver - Assistant Professor of Theatre & Drama (Costume Technology and Design), the University of Michigan, has previously taught costume technology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), and was the Senior Lecturer of Costume Technology at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA). Mrs. Oliver has designed and built costumes in the United States for theatres coast to coast—from the Los Angeles Opera to the New York City Opera.

She has built costumes for drama, film, dance, opera, and musical theatre productions for designers in South Africa, England, Spain, Hong Kong, Canada, China, and the Bahamas. Over the course of her career, Mrs. Oliver has worked in almost all levels of costuming—as a designer, assistant, maker, costume shop manager, wig maker, fabric dyer, wardrobe supervisor, and dresser.

In 2009, Professor Oliver began doing research on how to deliver costume design content online with a designer and maker collaboration between UMKC and the Arts University College Bournemouth in England. She continued to deeply explore this work when she taught at the HKAPA by supporting projects that paired student makers in Hong Kong with student designers in the United States and presented this work at The Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Her most recent book chapter is “Fashion and Costume: Global Adornment and Attire.” In New Approaches to Decolonizing Fashion History and Period Styles: Re-Fashioning Pedagogies edited by Ashley Bellet. New York: Routledge., offering inclusive, global, practical approaches for teaching costume and fashion history.