Here is an extract from an enlightening interview with Ann Roth, costume designer of Working Girl (1988), The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) and now 1930s set TV drama Mildred Pierce starring Kate Winslet. Read the full interview over at Harper’s Bazaar to learn why costume design is definitely NOT fashion design. Interestingly, Ann Roth touches upon a similar point made by The Tudors’ costume designer Joan Bergin in our exclusive interview. Bergin explains that, like Roth, she creates for characters, not catwalk. This is a common misconception of the costume designer’s role. Sometimes there is overlap, intentional or not, but costumes are intended to serve the narrative; any allusion to…

The first full trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger has bish bash boshed onto the internet. Look at how tiny Chris Evans as Steve Rogers is! There isn’t much new to see costume wise that has not already been revealed in papped set photographs. Mostly U.S. Army uniforms with overseas hats and other quiet 1940s period touches, such as khakis, 3pc suits, leather flight jackets and fire engine red lipstick on Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Costume design is a joint effort between Inception’s Jeffrey Kurland and twice Oscar nominated Anna B. Sheppard. It certainly looks exciting enough, but then again virtually all trailers for big budget comic book adaptations…

A quiet week for costume. Game of Thrones New costume and props exhibition to travel around the world. No dribbling over the embroidery, but you can sit on the Iron Throne. …and check out Daenerys’ ‘hot new dress’ in this video featurette at The Mary Sue. Avengers: Age of Ultron Another day, another superhero story. Possibly a few early clues about freshly cast Paul Pettany’s costume. Silent Witness We’ve just stumbled across this article, probably from the early 2000s, that neatly demonstrates what costume designers have to put up with when stars of popular drama series’ overindulge. The 22nd Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition Actual costumes from…

Quentin Tarantino has directed films that feature some of the most iconic costumes of the last twenty years, e.g. Reservoir Dogs’ black suits (Betsy Heimann), Mia Wallace’s trouser suit (Heimann), the Kill Bill tracksuit (Kumiko Ogawa, Catherine Marie Thomas). Yet no Tarantino movie has ever won or even been nominated for a Costume Design Oscar; a travesty that may boil down to his stories often being contemporary, not period. World War II set Inglourious Basterds (Anna B. Sheppard) was an exception, but again, amazingly, not even a nomination. Django Unchained, costumed by Sharen Davis, might just buck this trend. It is period so immediately stands in good stead. Secondly, judging…

Her Costume designer Casey Storm on creating a “warm and cosy and soothing” future. David Chronenberg: Evolution For WORN, Haley Mlotek examines the costumes on display at the Chronenberg exhibition, most of which are by the director’s sister, Denise. Unfortunately ‘Evolution’ closes on 19th January. Oscar Nominations Nathalie Atkinson on why the Best Costume Design category has basically become ‘Best Taffeta in a Leading Role’. Nailed it. And HERE she casts an eye over the equally baffling CDGA’s. African Dandies The new Guinness ad draws attention to some colourfully dressed gentlemen we really should be seeing a lot more of by now. Carol Ramsey Costume designer of Horrible Bosses and…

Directed By: Darren Aronofsky Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel Darren Aronofsky’s latest work is perhaps the ultimate mediation on the art/act of performance. The tale of the female ballet dancer and her strive for perfection is detailed here in a manner unlike any other seen upon the big screen, with the metaphorical “journey into hell” that the protagonist takes; a frenzied and visceral portrayal of an industry rarely exposed to the outside from within its notoriously cliquey confines. Black Swan tells the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a young ballerina who is a rising star in the New York City Ballet. Nina is an only child, her protective…

There have been two big costume reveals in the last few days, so it hardly seems surprising that Sherlock Holmes 2 (working title) should round out the week with its first official image courtesy of LA Times. What can we earn from this shot then? Not a lot, obviously. What we know of the plot, that this sequel is set in 1891, one year after the original film, that Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) is pursuing possibly history’s first supervillain Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) and sidekick Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) is settling down with Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly), is as vague as it is enticing. Moreover with Stephen Fry…

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page Directed By: Christopher Nolan Not everyone is going to like Inception. Not everyone likes, say, Fight Club, or Inglourious Basterds. Mainly because they went in expecting one thing and came out with something entirely different. And this is Inception in a nutshell. Slick, engaging, tense, yet maybe nothing at all like you expected. The screenplay by director Christopher Nolan, apparently decades in the making and originally a horror story, is constructed as his own personal maze in which to lose viewers. The meat of the film, the heist or ‘Inception’, incorporates several plots working concurrently towards a single narrative. Shooting at exotic locales…

Throughout summer it has been difficult to ignore the recent Chinoiserie trend in stores and magazines, kick-started by the opulent Louis Vuitton show in Paris and merged effortlessly into autumn by Paul Smith. Cheongsam collars and qipao slits aside, this new-found interest in the East may have been partly triggered by China’s growing appetite for high-end goods, which despite recent economic setbacks, has left Western luxury brands competing for a share of this very sizable market. This obsession with the ‘Orient’ has also seen a proliferation of Asian models on catwalks and throughout editorial spreads, which has courted controversy for some publications and raises all manner of questions regarding ethnicity…

RYAN GOSLING as Jacob in Warner Bros. Pictures? comedy ?CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.? a Warner Bros. Pictures release. © 2012, Lord Christopher Laverty.