Flipping through pages of costume photos, the five-inch thick binder that professor of costume design Todd Roehrman is looking over contains images of ball gowns to bloomers.

The collection, which has items dating back to the mid-1800s, is all part of the vintage collection owned by the SF State Theatre Arts department, and most items from before the 1940s are stored in a secured location at SF State.

The dresses, coats, hats and other garments made their way to the vault or in the closet at the Costume Shop at room 139 in the Creative Arts building through various donations, Roehrman said.

“People donate to the department for different reasons,” he said. “Some leave items to the school within the wills or their estate, and some are alumni who just want to donate a particular piece.”

Clothing stored in the Costume Shop, a closet smaller than a classroom, holds costumes of past student productions that are a combination of designed and donated items, and some of these costumes are reused for numerous student productions, Roehrman said.

In his 12 years at SF State, Roehrman said he has seen a wealth of different vintage items come into the department among boxes of other less desirable items, such as older women’s summer vacation outfits.

“Sometimes [the Theatre Arts department] gets pants and shirts, among other items we just can’t use,” he said.

With the department still picking up donations on a regular basis, the clothes that don’t go into the Costume Shop’s closet or secured vault are donated to thrift stores, he said.

The most recent donation came into the department just last week. Some items were less desirable, such as an unused hunting hat, while other items were considered gems.

“Although we couldn’t use all the clothes, we did find a couple of beautiful dresses from the 1940s among the boxes,” Roerhman said.

These dresses will take their place alongside other costumes in the vaulted vintage collection.

Items in the vault include a Callot Soeurs dress from the early 1900s and a Vionnet wedding dress from the 1960s. Dresses from these designers have appeared in different museums in New York, Japan and Europe.

The items that do make their way out of boxes and into the vault are studied by students within costume design classes to learn how to recreate reproductions of these vintage pieces for theatrical productions at SF State.

“They’re very valuable teaching tools,” Roherman said of the vintage costumes. “Studying these items close up gives students the chance to learn about different [fashion] eras.”

The valuable teaching tools that are reminiscent of some museum collections, however, are able to be stored in museum like conditions.

The money and space that would be ideal for storing the vintage costumes to keep them in mint condition are not in the current Theatre Arts department budget, Roherman said.

Roherman said he hopes that future budgets for the Theatre Arts department will be able to provide adequate funding to store the vintage items in the vault in the appropriate manner, which includes certain boxes, storage paper and climate control.

Besides wanting funding for vaulted items, Mark Koss, a senior Theatre Arts major who has designed costumes for 12 SF State theater productions, said the closet of the Costume Shop could use more space as well.

“[SF State has] a larger costume collection than many university Theatre Arts departments,” said Koss, 21.

Just having finished costumes for the SF State’s Players’ Club production, “Napoli Milionaria,” a play set during World War II, Koss used vintage clothing, wigs, earrings, gloves and shoes to recreate looks reminiscent of the 1940s.

“We use a combination of clothes from after 1940 with designed looks by costume design majors to create various looks for this play as well as others,” Koss said.

Kat Bushnell, 20, an actress in “Napoli Milionara,” said she likes that students have the ability to wear vintage and vintage-inspired pieces in different plays.

“In one of the productions I was in, [last year’s “Urinetown”], a woman donated about 12 1940s business suits for men and women,” said Bushnell, a junior Theatre Arts major. “The vintage pencil skirts and blazers really added to the time period play.”

As “Napoli Milionaria,” hits the stage, students working on the costumes for the next play at SF State, “Don Juan,” have already taken over the Costume Shop design space, while Costume Design students continue to study the vaulted costumes.