Mainly TV costume this week. The Good Wife ‘Not strong women dressed as men’ – cice interview with costume designer Daniel Lawson. Scandal Costume designer Lyn Paolo on just how amazing Kerry Washington is going to look in season 3. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talk Video:’Costume is invisible’ – Kristin Burke’s fascinating and fantastic TED Talk. She’s a natural teacher and raconteur. Self-Styled Siren Thought provoking post by Farran Nehme (thanks to Nicola Balkind for the nudge): applying James Laver’s law to cinema costumes. The IT Crowd Rebecca Hywel-Jones muses over those final episode costumes. Masters of Sex Loads more from costume designer Ane Crabtree. The show debuts on UK…

A few costume related stories you may have missed this week. Costume Designers Guild Video: concealing and simulating pregnancy with costume. Last Night Lucie Goulet analyses the use of a very specific navy blue dress worn by Keira Knightley in Last Night. Behind the Candelabra Cannot wait for this one. Ellen Mirojnick opens Liberace’s closet. Game of Thrones Visions of Westeros: Michele Clapton talks about costuming Game of Thrones – “I try to indicate the emotional state of the characters.” Star Trek Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, aka Hello Tailor, analyses all the Star Trek uniforms, including Into Darkness, so you don’t have to. Essential reading. The Great Gatsby My goodness, Vogue can…

This looks fun, like a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movie crossed with Game of Thrones. Starring Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Ben Barnes, Seventh Son is a supernatural fantasy about an ancient evil rising up to annihilate mankind. Filthy looking costume design by Jacqueline West (Argo). A couple of things stand out: firstly that Moore’s character Mother Malkin (wonderful name) appears to be rocking a feathered cape inspired by Snow White and the Huntsman and secondly, ruffs are making a comeback. The trailer is dark so it’s difficult to make out finer details, but it appears West is keeping costume grizzly and medieval without going cutting crazy. It’s either your cup…

Jacqueline Durran is celebrated for her costumes having been three times nominated for the Best Costume Design Academy Award; first in 2005 for Pride and Prejudice, again in 2007 for Atonement, and now 2013 for Anna Karenina in which she is both Oscar and BAFTA nominated. Starring Keira Knightley, who wore Durran’s emerald green 30’s-style dress to widespread acclaim in Atonement, Durran’s face-framing furs, extravagantly veiled hats and watered silk gowns beautifully accentuate Knightley’s tragic Anna. Clothes on Film contributor Karin E. Baker spoke to Durran about gathering the many details that went into creating the opulent look for this latest interpretation of Tolstoy’s novel. The $2 million worth of…

Christmas comes early for anyone looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises (that’s all of us then); as Warner Bros. has released a full trailer telling us absolutely everything we need to know before the film hits cinemas next July, i.e. nothing. This is not quite true; the trailer is a good one. It tantalises without giving anything much away regarding plot that we do not already know. Gotham is on the eve of a revolution, hinted at by sultry Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), aka Catwoman, and seemingly instigated by the near silent menace of Bane (Tom Hardy). It is an uprising against the privileged and decadent, something that has…

A couple of days ago we paid a visit to Brooks Brothers in London. Unfortunately for the disappointed staff we were not planning on spending anything, instead we just wanted to see Catherine Martin’s costumes on display from The Great Gatsby. We snapped a few photos but they are largely terrible thanks to an unsteady hand and underpowered camera. Still, they should give you a flavour of the costumes if nothing else. There are three displays featuring half a dozen dresses with male mannequins dotted in-between – all of which are wearing tuxedos/evening suits. This is a shame because Brooks Brothers provided 1920s patterns of all suit styles for the…

Stone slacks, leather cardigan, pale denim – who wouldn’t want to dress like Alan Partridge? This may be dad brand clothing, but it announces you as the most confident man in the room. Driving gloves? That’s nothing. Try removing your coat and jacket then leaving the driving gloves until last. That takes guts, or failing that a complete lack of personal awareness. In other words it takes a Partridge. Steve Coogan co-created and has played sports-journalist-turned-chat-show-host-turned-DJ Alan Partridge on and off for 22 years. Nothing his character wears is random. For costume designer Julian Day (Berberian Sound Studio, Rush), working alongside perfectionist Coogan on Alpha Papa must have been a…

Scrupulously period accurate TV drama Boardwalk Empire (screening on Sky Atlantic) is set in early 1920s Atlantic City, a then hotbed of political corruption and prohibition racketeering. Not that such a description would be alluded to in the holiday brochures; on the surface everything was salt water taffy and Temperance League matriarchs fighting the good fight. Via John Dunn’s striking costumes, the show broadly ensures that men are the primary objects of exhibition, in particular corrupt county treasurer Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi). This is because women of the era had yet to break away from history’s designated roles of wife, mother, sex object; they had no freedom to choose their…

A few random images from The American starring George Clooney, really for no other reason than the costume design by Suttirat Anne Larlarb is so stylishly contemporary and, despite the title, clean and European. It’s going to be a good looking film. The American (directed by Anton Corbijn) is an upcoming thriller about expert assassin Jack (Clooney) who holes up in Europe after his last disastrous job. He vows his next hit will be his last, but being as this is a feature length movie that was not very likely to happen. And it doesn’t. George Clooney’s serious hitman Jack, here casual in hip length lightweight jacket and black zip…

Le full trailer for Luc Besson’s latest film as director, Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec) has arrived on the net. It is the early 20th Century and ladies wore massive hats. Watch le trailer with subtitles HERE Based on the dual French/Belgian comics of writer/illustrator Jacques Tardi, the movie, like the books, follows the escapades of heroine Adèle Blanc-Sec, an eligible investigative journalist who battles crime and mythical monsters while all the time endeavouring to ‘act like a lady’. The stories first appeared in 1976 and are set in the 1910s and later on around 1918, after Blanc-Sec is cryogenically frozen for the duration…