Spring. It’s long overdue and so is spring fashion. While winter clothes inspired by trends of 2010 fall collections are still prevalent, stores are piling up with spring lines that were on runways during September. Two attention grabbing trends in women’s fashion this upcoming season are prints and turbans, empathised in hit 1988 comedy Coming to America (directed by John Landis). U.S. Vogue currently features seven designers with their 2011 Spring/Summer Ready-to-Wear collections, referring to them as the “American All-Stars” of New York fashion in a spread entitled ‘Gangs of New York’. Rodarte, by Kate and Laura Mulleavey, who have made Vogue’s top ten season after season, are among the…

This insightful comedy about the hopelessness of love is every inch a ‘fashion film’, both in terms of narrative and thanks to costume designer Dayna Pink’s enviable parade of menswear trends and elegant suiting. Crazy, Stupid, Love (directed by Glenn Ficara and John Requa) stars Steve Carell as Cal Weaver, a middle aged man who has forgotten how to be a man and Ryan Gosling as Jacob Palmer, a bar culture player who helps Cal regain his self respect. Clothes in the film are prioritised over the man. They denote what we wear reflects how we evolve. Or in the case of Cal during the very first scene, how we…

The Phantom of the Opera (2004, directed by Joel Schumacher) is a lavish depiction of its world, examining the nature of facade – the un-reality of the stage, the masked Phantom of the title, and the duality of “costume” within costume (the majority of clothes on screen are designed as costumes for use in performances in the narrative). Costume designer Alexandra Byrne makes use of symbolic colour palettes and silhouettes to bring this heightened world to life. We are first taken into the world of the Opera Populaire, 1870, with the dress rehearsal of “Hannibal”. It is interesting to note that not all are wearing full “costume” – corsets and…

Jennifer Garner’s costumes in 13 Going On 30 (2004) are some of the most fun for a romantic comedy of recent years. In a plot which sees gawky teenager Jenna Rink (Garner) flash thirteen years into the future to find herself editor of Poise fashion magazine, it is unsurprising if the clothes she wears are somewhat…ahem….‘colourful’. At the start of the film, when Jenna is indeed 13, there is an array of 1980s fashions on show, including pale dyed denims, bejewelled off-the-shoulder tops and colours so bright they are practically luminous. Costume designer Susie DeSanto (Miss Congeniality, 2000) really went to town. When time jumps forward, however, and Jenna is…

Costume catch up time. Puttin’ on the Glitz Clothes on Film editor Christopher Laverty will be teaming up with the incomparable Amber Jane Butchart for an exciting talk at the British Library. Man of Steel Michael Wilkinson talks about his design process on the film, plus his overall approach to costuming in general at this LACMA event. For Tyranny of Style, Brianne Gillen records the details. Divergent Carlo Poggioli’s costume sketches and character info. Looks good, but will probably save reading this until after watching. Due 21st. Constantine First look at the trenchcoat wearing, Sting-alike lead character for NBC’s new television series. True Detective Costume designer Jenny Eagan talks about…

For a big budget movie about a lone astronaut who gets stranded on Mars, the spacesuits in The Martian are surprisingly sober in terms of design. There is an attempt here to make everything seem as plausible as possible, costume design especially. Director Ridley Scott’s regular costumer Janty Yates has created possibly the sexiest spacesuits ever seen on screen, and what’s more they are functional. To paraphrase a line in the film, she had to “science the shit out of them”. Yates collaborated with NASA looking specifically at their Z1 and Z2 prototypes to create an EVA (‘Extravehicular Activity’ – any time the crew must go outside) suit and surface…

Quite deliberately, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) provokes discussion. Why is Kevin evil? Was he born that way? Did his mother make him that way by withholding love? Is he a manifestation of his mother’s own hatred toward humanity? Questions one could argue that director Lynne Ramsay and screenwriter Rory Kinnear (adapted from Lionel Shriver’s novel) never intended their audience to be able to answer satisfactorily. To describe the film as ‘arty’ would be doing everyone involved a disservice, but there is no getting away from its obvious stylisation. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Judy Becker and costume designer Catherine George deserve credit for combing their talents to…

Who could ever suggest James Bond never puts a foot wrong sartorially? While it tends to be Roger Moore’s seventies incarnation receiving most disdain, this baby blue towelling playsuit worn by Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964, directed by Guy Hamilton) is commonly remembered as the actor’s one costume disaster. Yet, seen in period context and motion, plus modelled by one of the most handsome gentlemen who ever graced the screen, it might be worthy of reconsideration. Worn for the film’s first post-credits scene, whereby Bond is introduced, informally, to megalomaniac villain Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), this diminutive, crotch wrangling ‘beach wear’ is not especially typical for the time. Here featuring…

On the surface it may be obvious who undergoes the biggest character transformation in Rocky (the clue is in the title). Though really the subtlest arc occurs for that painfully shy girl from the pet store played with such empathy by Talia Shire. She may start out wearing chunky cardigans and your Nan’s glasses, but by the end of the story “Yo, Adrian” could not look more feminine. Put together by costumer Robert Cambel (who only has one further credit on his CV), Shire’s outfits reflect a convincing shift in deep character from Adrian’s opening scene when she is too afraid to talk, progressing to confident yet homely rock for…

Since the 1960s, show business legend Debbie Reynolds has been stockpiling and promoting the preservation of Hollywood costumes, props and other memorabilia. Now she is selling her whole collection… CLICK HERE two download a PDF of the catalouge. The auction is to be held in several stages by Profiles in History, a leading dealer of autographs, manuscripts and vintage signed photographs. Costumes featured in the first sale include: Gene Kelly’s 3-pc wool herringbone suit by Walter Plunkett for Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Audrey Hepburn’s embroidered lace ‘Ascot dress’ from My Fair Lady (1964) designed by Cecil Beaton, Adrian’s gingham test dress for Judy Garland used for the first two…