Not much to go on, but this project is already looking a bit WOW. Director Christophe Gans is adapting French fairytale La belle & la bête for the screen starring Léa Seydoux as the Belle and Vincent Cassel as the Beast. Costumes are by Pierre-Yves Gayraud (Cloud Atlas, The Bourne Identity), seemingly channelling fantasy via mid-late 18th century France, which is roughly when the original story is set, plus a tiny bit of Eiko Ishioka thrown in for good measure. Gans directed Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), an insane yet quite brilliant adventure/horror, based on a true story and also set in late 1700s France. Costumes for that film were…

Arts Illustrated is an elegant new magazine looking at the best and most interesting in culture and design from around the world. Clothes on Film editor Chris Laverty has a regular column in the magazine entitled ‘The Fabric of Cinema’ in which he analyses the symbolic application of costume design in movies, both old and new. The maiden issue of Arts Illustrated focuses on neo-surrelism, and the first Fabric of Cinema column is about that master of costume surrealism, Eiko Ishioka. Laverty takes an in-depth, sometimes critical look at her work with particular focus on The Cell. Below are the first two paragraphs of the article, the remainder of which…

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…

Does Japanese period costume reflect on contemporary fashion? French born writer Aurélie Coulibaly appraises the hipster style of Norwegian Wood. Youth, love, Japan, 1960s; Norwegian Wood (2010, directed by Anh Hung Tran) is a fable on loss and growing up. Set from the summer of ’67 through to a spring morning just a few years later, somewhere between child and adulthood, we meet an assorted group of angelic characters to move any sensitive soul. We are in Tokyo, and along with the hectic political context of students’ protests against established order, alternatively contemplating tormented Naoko (Rinko Kikushi) and youthful Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) in their intense, yet poetic relationship with Toru…

It is with huge anticipation that we take an exclusive look at FilmCraft: Costume Design by Deborah Nadoolman Landis, arguably the most important person in the costume industry today. As costume designer for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Coming to America (1988), Burke and Hare (2010), and many other well known titles, in addition to former two-term president of the CDG, academic scholar and now museum curator, Nadoolman Landis is ideally placed to write such a book. It reads to us like an update of her similarly titled ScreenCraft volume from 2003, but is not officially intended as such. This all new publication features a detailed introduction, plus interviews…

MINOR SPOILERS Movies that feature contemporary fashion, particularly high-end and particularly for women, are a tricky sell costume wise. While men’s semi-formal to formal attire is generally shaped around the fundamental guise of the lounge suit, women’s clothing has a lot more avenues and possibilities. In addition to colour and pattern there is shape and form, which can vary dramatically for the fashionable wearer. What can vary dramatically can also date dramatically and this can be major stumbling block for costume designers. Films centred around the world of fashion, or those that include a lot of fashionable garments such as The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Clueless (1995) and Funny Face……

MINOR SPOILERS Movies that feature contemporary fashion, particularly high-end and particularly for women, are a tricky sell costume wise. While men’s semi-formal to formal attire is generally shaped around the fundamental guise of the lounge suit, women’s clothing has a lot more avenues and possibilities. In addition to colour and pattern there is shape and form, which can vary dramatically for the fashionable wearer. What can vary dramatically can also date dramatically and this can be major stumbling block for costume designers. Films centred around the world of fashion, or those that include a lot of fashionable garments such as The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Clueless (1995) and Funny Face…

Netflix have released a short featurette about costume design for The Alienist, giving an overall glimpse at the work of Michael Kaplan and his team in putting together the era of 1896, New York. What is enticing about The Alienist, apart from the fact that it’s brilliant whodunit telly, is that it is set outside of England, which is so often the preserve of dramas such as these. This is NY style at a point in history when those with money were about to get a whole lot more. Expensive, in other words, and if you had deep enough pockets your taste in fashion would echo this. Check out the…

The (somewhat) recently debuted trailer for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers affords just the briefest, intensely edited peek at those 17th century costumes in motion. It’s a lace and linen fest. Alexandre Dumas père’s original story of The Three Musketeers takes place in France before the opulent reign of Louis XIV. This is important because in costume terms the overall style was considerably more sober than in both Henry VIII’s Tudor reign and the French sartorial dominance of the world that was to follow. During the 17th century, fashion was ever changing and evolving, though judging by this trailer costume designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud (The Bourne Identity)…

Netflix have released a short featurette about costume design for The Alienist, giving an overall glimpse at the work of Michael Kaplan and his team in putting together the era of 1896, New York. What is enticing about The Alienist, apart from the fact that it’s brilliant whodunit telly, is that it is set outside of England, which is so often the preserve of dramas such as these. This is NY style at a point in history when those with money were about to get a whole lot more. Expensive, in other words, and if you had deep enough pockets your taste in fashion would echo this. Check out the…