Ms. Ingham and two partners opened a fabric store andworkshop called Clothworks

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Ms. Ingham was considered one of the nation's foremost costumedesigners, particularly for Shakespeare and the classicaltheatrical repertory. In 1979, she designed the costumes for herhusband's play, "Custer," about frontier Gen. George ArmstrongCuster, presented at the Kennedy Center. She also created costumesfor plays at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Arena Stage inWashington and taught at the University of Mary Washington inFredericksburg.

She was born in Charlottesville and, while attending the Universityof Virginia's nursing school in the late 1950s, began sewingcostumes for the theater department. As a student at Virginia, shemet actor and playwright Robert Ingham, whom she married in 1959.

The two traveled around the country to pursue their educations andcareers in theater. Ms. Ingham studied playwriting and design atthe Yale School of Drama in the early 1960s and became a foundingmember of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., where sheheaded the costume shop.

After moving with her family to Montana, Ms. Ingham completed herbachelor's degree in English at the University of Montana in 1973.She then went to Milwaukee, where she managed the costume shop atthe Milwaukee Repertory Theater from 1973 to 1978.

Ms. Ingham taught for four years at Southern Methodist Universityin Dallas before moving to Charlottesville in 1982. Three yearslater, Ms. Ingham and two partners opened a fabric store andworkshop called Clothworks. She taught at the University of MaryWashington from 1989 to 2001.

With designer Liz Covey, Ms. Ingham wrote three influential bookson costume design, "The Costumer's Handbook," "The CostumeDesigner's Handbook" and "The Costume Technician's Handbook." Thebooks, considered among the most authoritative in the field, dealwith issues far beyond the physical construction and sewing ofcostumes. They also address theatrical history, audience awareness,shop management and the business of the theater, as well as thesafety concerns affecting workers in design shops.

Covey and Ms. Ingham received the Golden Pen Award of the U.S.Institute for Theatre Technology in 2004. Two years later, Ms.Ingham received the institute's Distinguished Lifetime AchievementAward.

In 1998, Ms. Ingham published "From Page to Stage: How TheatreDesigners Make Connections Between Texts and Images," whichcodified her conception of the process of theatrical design and howdesigners could work collaboratively with directors to create aunified theatrical experience. She emphasized that a designershould be a thoughtful reader and needed to have a deepunderstanding of the script, characters, history, psychology andvisual look of a play in order to create appropriate costumes,lighting and set design.

"It's not really about the lighting or design," her son Robert"Ted" Ingham said. "It's about getting the deeper meaning of theplay."

Over the past 25 years, Ms. Ingham designed costumes, using bothperiod dress and modern styles, for Shakespearean plays atfestivals and theaters around the country. She presented workshopson costume design in China and throughout the United States. In2003, she was one of the founders of the Great River ShakespeareFestival, which presents Shakespearean plays along the MississippiRiver in Winona, Minn., each June and July.

She received a master's degree in liberal arts from St. John'sCollege in Annapolis in 1995. In her classes and workshops, she wasknown for encouraging young designers embarking on careers in thetheater.

Her husband died in 1992.

In addition to her son, of Montpelier, Vt., survivors include threeother sons, Richard Ingham of Alexandria, James Ingham of PaloAlto, Calif., and Stephen Ingham of Verona, Italy; and fourgrandchildren.