Hats are one of the standout trends from this season’s Fall/Winter Collections. They add elegance and glamour to any outfit for both men and women. Costume Designer Theadora Van Runkle’s Oscar nominated work for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, is a great example of how the simple addition of a hat can say a lot about a character. The function of hats and other forms of headwear are not simply to cover the head and protect it from the elements. Their use has defined social and cultural identity throughout mankind’s history, and they go…

Hats are one of the standout trends from this season’s Fall/Winter Collections. They add elegance and glamour to any outfit for both men and women. Costume Designer Theadora Van Runkle’s Oscar nominated work for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, is a great example of how the simple addition of a hat can say a lot about a character. The function of hats and other forms of headwear are not simply to cover the head and protect it from the elements. Their use has defined social and cultural identity throughout mankind’s history, and they go…

By no means intended as an exhaustive list, Clothes on Film ponder an overview of 2011 in costume. Concentrating on mainstream fare that those outside of big cities are likely to have seen, we consider which costumes delighted, surprised and best of all, enlightened us. Expect to spot Drive, Melancholia and Hugo on this list somewhere. Costume encompasses every item of clothing worn on film. By strict definition costume is not ‘wardrobe’; wardrobe is what Oprah Winfrey wore on her talk show. While at Clothes on Film we embrace all forms of costume, we do have a slight bias for contemporary, although only because it is often underrepresented in the…

By no means intended as an exhaustive list, Clothes on Film ponder an overview of 2011 in costume. Concentrating on mainstream fare that those outside of big cities are likely to have seen, we consider which costumes delighted, surprised and best of all, enlightened us. Expect to spot Drive, Melancholia and Hugo on this list somewhere. Costume encompasses every item of clothing worn on film. By strict definition costume is not ‘wardrobe’; wardrobe is what Oprah Winfrey wore on her talk show. While at Clothes on Film we embrace all forms of costume, we do have a slight bias for contemporary, although only because it is often underrepresented in the…

Playing computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, Noomi Rapace embodies the character in such a exhaustive way that picturing anyone else in the role was, until recently, impossible. Defined by copious piercings, a ragged biker leather jacket and skinny jeans, Lisbeth is a blatant symbol of unconformity. From author Stieg Larsson’s creation to costume designer Cilla Rörby’s interpretation for the screen, Lisbeth harks back to the mid-1970s; the early days of punk and a desire to skew superficial expectations. Lisbeth’s costume changes for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009, directed by Niels Arden Oplev) are faithful, certainly in spirit, to Larsson’s Millennium novels. The overall shock factor has been toned down…

© 2010 Chris Laverty. All rights reserved. 3 Aug ’10 Paddy Considine plays The Guardian journalist Simon Ross in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). And thanks to costume designer Shay Cunliffe, he wears a Belstaff man bag. Nothing unusual about him carrying a bag, he is a reporter after all. Except that, somehow, there is; even in this day and age when gender blending style has never been more prominent, it still looks ‘wrong’. But why? Male journalists tend to fall into two categories: those that shave on a regular basis, and those that don’t. Ross is the former, a squeaky clean type in inoffensive brown fine stripe moleskin jacket, white…