Despite being twice Oscar nominated, for Ray in 2004 and then Dreamgirls and 2006, costume designer Sharen Davis has yet to win the big one. She ticks a lot of the Academy’s boxes too: period clothes, stage wear, real life people. However, Ms. Davis is not just about history and glamour, her work is thoughtful, detailed and appropriate to tone. Django Unchained is the first time Sharen Davis has worked with Quentin Tarantino, as generally he favours using different costume designers depending on the project. Yet on this evidence the director is likely to employ her services again. The date may be 1859, the location America’s deep south, but this…

It’s the most celebrated, the most special, the most significant watch of all time; Rolex is symbolic of many things in the movies: style, wealth, attitude, and perhaps most importantly, taste. That is not to say a Rolex is elitist, but rather that the wearer on screen, anyone from James Bond to Steve McQueen, is someone possessed of the knowledge that there is no better. Rolex is the pinnacle. The history of Rolex on film is not nearly as interesting as the scope of its wearers and how this simple act of either discreet or ostentatious display can define character. Take James Bond, a man whose breeding was forced upon…

Trailer number one for The Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman. He is joining the Yakuza, fighting the Yakuza; dressed head to toe in black, basically he is trying to fit in. Wolverine, or more accurately Logan, appears to be adopting the paradoxically traditional yet modern uniform of crime organisation the Yakuza, aka the Japanese Mafia. This is black on black shirt, tie, suit and lightweight (slip on) coat with black leather shoes. Despite a past that reaches all the way back to the sixteenth century, the Yakuza of today made most of their money during the 1980s financial boom. Their unofficial uniform is sourced from the French interpretation of classic era…

Part two of a new Dual Analysis costume film review. Based on the 1967 novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby is a story about a young couple that is (voluntarily, on the part of the husband, and unwittingly on the part of the wife) lured into a satanic cult. The wife, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is unknowingly impregnated with Satan’s spawn, and she slowly figures out what is happening to her as the movie progresses. This film gave me nightmares last night. It’s pretty creepy. A warning: do not watch this film if you are pregnant!! The young couple, Rosemary and Guy (John Cassavetes), moves into a beautiful Gothic apartment building…

There are already a lot of excellent interviews with Oscar winning Beauty and the Beast costume designer Jacqueline Durran online, so with my limited communication I wanted to ask a little more about Belle’s (Emma[…] MILD SPOILERS Director Ben Wheatley’s latest, Free Fire, is set in Boston, 1978, but was actually shot in Brighton in 2015. Being as the plot revolves around ten characters involved in a one hour plus[…] To tie-in with the release of Disney’s new live-action version of Beauty and Beast, the project’s Oscar winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran teamed up with students from Central Saint Martin’s college in London to reinterpret[…] The 1945 cinematic adaptation of…

That’ll do, costume. That’ll do. Captain America: The Winter Soldier Hello Tailor is stealing away your life with her rundowns of this mildly popular comic book movie. Not all are costume based, though all are worth reading. Here is PART 1. PART 2 PART 3 PART 4! Keeping it Cap America, Tyranny of Style has an interview with the film’s costume designer – and original Hunger Games changer – Judianna Makovsky HERE. Mad Men Janie Bryant launches ‘Janie Bryant Couture’. So basically that’s techy tights designed by one of the world’s best known costume designers. Game of Thrones The desi influence. A bit of a stretch, but still an intriguing…

British actress Emily Blunt garnered a Golden Globe nomination this week for her fine work on The Young Victoria (2009). As such we are presented with the perfect excuse to run a revealing interview with the film’s costume designer Sandy Powell. Sandy Powell is no newbie to the world of costume design. Having won an Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love (1998), she has also worked with producer of The Young Victoria, Martin Scorsese, several times too, notably on Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004, again an Oscar winner) and 1950s set Shutter Island which is due out later this year. Evidently period costumes are Powell’s niche, but she is…

House of Tolerance (original French title L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close, 2011) is set in a Paris brothel during the twilight of 19th century/eve of 20th century. The story focuses entirely on twelve females aged around 16-30 living and working in the brothel as prostitutes. This is not a ‘knocking shop’, as Madame Marie-France (Noémie Lvovsky) is keen to impress, but a respectable establishment where elegant, if sometimes dangerous men go to meet elegant woman bedecked in semi-revealing Belle Époque fashions and fine silk lingerie. Costume designer for House of Tolerance, Anaïs Romand (César award winner), approached the project with a view that true period authenticity can never be…

A final favourite selection of Audrey Hepburn outfits from Two for the Road (1967). Again if you have not seen the film, give it go. Even if you don’t like the look of the clothes, it is like no Audrey film you have ever come across, guaranteed. Swirly Print Dress Multi-coloured psychedelic print mini-dress with bateau neck and flared sleeves. Pink high heel shoes. This is Riviera chic for a point in the film where Audrey’s character is as rich and discontent as she is ever going to be. The swirly geometric print is similar to Emilio Pucci’s signature creations from the mid-sixties onwards. His dresses were, and still are,…

Recently we were fortunate enough to get our hands on Amber Jane Butchart’s new book, her ‘Fashion Miscellany’, which has just been published by The IIex Press. If you don’t already know, Amber is a contributor to Clothes on Film and will soon be teaming up with editor Christopher Laverty for an evening of Jazz Era discussion at the British Library. Her book, by the way, is flippin’ brilliant. If you care even slightly about what we wear and why, AJBFM is an indispensable purchase. The layout of it is simple enough. It’s basically designed as a dip-in-and-out for research, or whenever you fancy a flick though. We’d call this…