Gloria is more presence, more ‘sensation’ than woman, attests Sara Bivigou. On a blazingly hot New York City day she appears suddenly. Dressed in a floor length beige raincoat and what looks to be pale pink pyjamas, she looks both of the moment and as though she has just woken up. This is because Gloria keeps a mood and pace all of her own, carries time around her neck, wears it in the form of a gold pocket watch necklace. Gloria is the story of a gangster’s ex-girlfriend who goes on the run with Phil (John Adames), a seven year old boy, after his family have been killed by mobsters.…

The first full-length trailer for Disney’s new live-action adaptation of Cinderella was this week and featured tantalising glimpses of what promises to be a visually gorgeous film. The costumes, designed by three time Academy Award winner Sandy Powell, appear to be absolutely stunning. With a clever mix of the eighteenth century, the 1830s, and a little 1950s couture thrown in for good measure (Powell has been quoted as saying she was aiming for the look of “a nineteenth-century period film made in the 1940s or ’50s”), Powell has created another jewel to add to her already over-bling crown. Here is a quick rundown of some of the looks we’ve been…

Want another look at Janty Yates’ costume design work for Ridley Scott’s upcoming Robin Hood? Thought you might. Most of the ensembles seem to be late Medieval inspired, though we must also factor in creative license and a diverse historical timeline behind the original folk story. This is the origin of outlaw Robin Hood without the singing and probably with a lot of pummeling. Difficult for Janty Yates, as the setting predetermines what we expect to see, yet we also want something new. In other words, it has to look like traditional Robin Hood with a ‘modern’ twist – and that does not mean Reebok in the Hood Pumps and…

SPOILERS FROM THE OUTSET It is not made clear exactly when The Place Beyond the Pines (2013, directed by Derek Cianfrance) is set. The cars, technology, clothes and, in due course, the film’s structure lead us to conclude the first half takes places sometime around the mid-1990s. Being a solemn story the costume design generally avoids knowing clichés. If there was ever a decade ripe for mocking it is the early to mid nineties, but The Place Beyond the Pines sticks to flashes of contemporary trends applicable to its characters. Do not let Ryan Gosling’s ‘moto bandit’ Luke Glanton plastered over the marketing in paint pants and a Metallica tee…

Based loosely on the real life theft of £12,000 of gold bullion from a moving railway train in 1855 (though in the movie the amount had swelled to £25,000), The First Great Train Robbery (1979) features a hefty slew of period costumes for its modest $6,000,000 budget. It is also Michael Crichton’s best film as a director, adapted from his own novel published in 1975. 1855, London: most definitely a time of gentlemanly excellence. Before the lounge suit took hold in the late nineteenth century, the frock coat (or variations thereof) and trousers, whether single or double breasted for formality, was considered the only way for man to dress in…

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston Directed By: Nicolas Winding Refn On the surface, Drive is effortlessly stylish, old-school filmmaking that luxuriates in its retro fashion. Yet, as Simon Kinnear reveals, underneath the hood, lurks a troubling character study. It has become something of a cliché to acknowledge the debt owed by the Movie Brats of the 1970s to the European auteurs of the 1950s and 1960s. Woody Allen idolised Ingmar Bergman, Paul Schrader wrote a book about Bresson and Dreyer, both Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola ripped-off Antonioni’s Blow-Up, and Scorsese littered his films with allusions to Godard and Visconti. Yet arguably the most blatant steal…

The following is an expanded article Clothes on Film editor Chris Laverty wrote for men’s style resource MR PORTER analysing Michael Caine’s suits in The Italian Job. This post covers all the costumes he wore during the film. If The Italian Job (1969) needs any introduction at all it might be possible you’ve been in a coma for the past 40 years. It’s so well known and so well loved that were it not for the fact that no-one has really delved into the sartorial details of Michael Caine’s suits there would be nothing left to talk about. As it happens we have spent time studying and researching The Italian…

What young girl doesn’t want to be in the ‘Pink Ladies’ after seeing Grease (1978)? They are synonymous by their satin-lined powder pink baseball-style jacket, ‘Pink Ladies’ embroidered in black scrawl on the reverse, their name on the front, worn mostly with the collar up for that rebellious touch. Celebrating impurity, they are one of the most popular and imitated girl gangs on screen. Being ‘pink’ is a sarcastic and perhaps sexual allusion. Specialist websites suggest for a Pink Lady we need their jacket and a poodle skirt, but what do the girls really wear and why? Rizzo, the Pink Ladies’ leader, is studied HERE, with this article focusing on…

Watch the trailer HERE The latest trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender has arrived in all its CG glory. Sumptuous looking costume design by Judianna Makovsky. The film is a live-action version of Nickelodeon’s TV animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, about a fantastical world where ‘benders’ (steady) can control the elements Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. A deceptively young man Aang (played by Noah Ringer) must restore peace after the ‘Fire Nation’ openly declares war. Aang is ‘The Avatar’, basically a physical manifestation of the four classical elements, though at the start of the story he can only manipulate Air. Judianna Makovsky has been costume designer on…

Gangster Squad is a fantasy grounded in reality. One of the coolest costume design names in the business, Mary Zophres, unveils a Los Angeles catwalk circa 1949. Maybe not 100% what actually existed but given the romanticised tone of the movie, exactly what hoped to see. To be clear, Mary Zophres has not ignored historical accuracy. After working on films such as Catch Me if You Can (2002) and True Grit (2010) she is known for her dedication to factual detail, yet never at the expense of telling the story her director wishes to. In this instance director Ruben Fleischer has approached Gangster Squad as an old school matinee. While…