How does one design Giselle?

How does one design Giselle? To invent settings and dresses for an old ballet which has become a classic, for Giselle, Coppelia or Swan Lake, seems to me one of the hardest tasks facing a designer of to-day. First he must consider the place and period in which the action of the ballet takes place: in the case of Giselle, medieval Germany. Then he cannot forget that Giselle is a ballet of the eighteen-thirties, so the Middle Ages must be somehow tamed and romanticised a la Louis-Philippe. Finally, he knows that his work must be visually acceptable to a modern audience.

This book contains many examples of the way modern painters have treated old ballets. It is clearly a mistake for them to give rein to their idiosyncrasies in the way they might with a new creation. Such settings for Giselle as the fantasies of Berman and Carzou made it impossible for the dancers to create an illusion of reality, to render the tragic action credible and moving. The designer must strike a balance between the real and the theatrical, between his own style and a pastiche of another period.

Modern Ballet Design: A Picture-book with Notes by Richard Buckle. 1955. Page 2-3.