The highly anticipated season five premiere of Game of Thrones aired across the globe this week, giving us tantalising glimpses of where our favorite characters are now. We saw two brief scenes of Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), who had a major makeover at the end of Season Four. With this new direction in her character, where will she end up in Season Five? In this little addendum to our previous analysis of her wardrobe, we explore the character clues in Sansa’s striking new look (costume design by Michele Clapton). Sansa has not had it easy so far. During the last few seasons she has been trapped in King’s Landing, tortured…

American Gigolo (1980, directed by Paul Schrader) is a vapid expression of style without substance that has somehow become an academic’s favourite. Yet to argue the emptiness of the film and its bland protagonist as subtext is to miss the big picture: American Gigolo is not even about its protagonist; it is about what he wears. American Gigolo is about Armani. It was Italian designers who led a revolution in tailoring during the early 1980s, reinventing the male suit by removing hitherto essential padding for a lightweight, almost floppy silhouette. Combined with unusual fabric choices and bold colours, they defined the decade. Giorgio Armani was at the forefront of this…

Jim Caviezel as new Number Six spends most of his time in the preview footage wearing a green V-neck sweater and matching lightweight zipper. The best darn movie of the seventies you’ve never seen. A bobbed hair ‘modette’ girl wears a cute brown and cream mini-dress during the house party sequence. Karl Urban in a natural linen tunic shirt; Kirill stands out, but only because he is supposed to. A capitalist wet dream; one that we have long since woken up from screaming. A straightforward loosely tied scarf around the handbag and Joan is the most stylish woman in the office. Harold Ramis chats candidly about Ghostbusters 3. This provides…

MILD SPOILERS The hoodie has as much to say about it’s wearer as, say, the white t-shirt does. By which I mean that, depending on context, it can say anything. The white t-shirt can imply clean, erotic, the worker – or a combination of all three. In the eyes of contemporary media, the hoodie largely suggests youth. Shady youth, someone not keen to reveal their identity because they are planning on robbing you or worse. Put the hoodie on a black man and it is pretty much akin to walking down the street in a striped jumper with a sack marked ‘swag’. Luke Cage is not set to change that…

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…

MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT Minor, seemingly insignificant touches matter in the realm of sci-fi costume. They inspire curiosity, ignite recognition and establish a believable setting in which a story can unfold. Costume designer for Star Trek Into Darkness, Michael Kaplan, obviously grasps this concept. Returning as reboot costumer, he keeps things simple yet effective. A splash of colour here, a recognisable neckline there; again he manages to appease lifelong Star Trek fans without alienating newcomers. Kaplan and director J.J. Abrams’ smartest move is to acknowledge but not overplay Star Trek heritage. Never be too self-referential, never try too hard not to be; it’s a balancing act. Uniforms worn by the crew…

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…

Welsh born costume designer Lindy Hemming started her career in the theatre, conceding she hardly watched any movies at all until moving to London. Yet several decades later Ms. Hemming has designed for such hugely successful features as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and won an Academy Award for Topsy Turvy (1999). Of course her tenure with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond (and one for Daniel Craig) is well known, much like her role as Christopher Nolan’s regular costumer for his Dark Knight trilogy. Having long been intrigued by Nolan’s unique vision, particularly after Memento (2000), Ms. Hemming was thrilled to…

Less a costume movie and more a fashion one, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) is typical of its celebrated naughty director Russ Meyer in all the best possible ways. Meyer fills the screen with a beautiful cast in cute outfits and expects us to take it all seriously. Thing is, he actually has something serious to say. Emphatically not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls made in 1967 (although that was its original intention), this softcore send-up was filmed soon after the tragic murder of actress Sharon Tate – star of Valley of the Dolls. Here Myer admonishes not only the perils of fame itself, but of…

The latest book by fashion historian, and now TV presenter Amber Butchart (A Stitch in Time on BBC 4 – second season please), is a comprehensively researched stroll through the best dressed folk ever to exist on the planet. The Fashion Chronicles: The Style Stories of History’s Best Dressed is laid out to be effortlessly readable, split into sections ranging from Ancient (and we mean ancient; basically like the first clothes ever) to 20th and 21st Century. Each entry gets a couple of pages of engaging historical notes and background justifying their inclusion along with a photo / picture or two. It works; it doesn’t feel like study or revision,…