What a busy twelve months it’s been for costume design. Really though, this art, or craft, or business (Deborah Nadoolman Landis insists it is definitely a business) gets more talked about each year. 2013 was especially exciting however as it seemed every month something even more thrilling arrived to fawn over. In the last few weeks alone we have had The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Sleepy Hollow, and now American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street on the horizon. Dipping back further, it was Stoker that got us excited about subtext, The Great Gatsby that slammed the lid on that twenties revival once and for all, and Behind……

Costume designer for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Michael Kaplan, talks us through his choices and intentions for clothing in the film. Prepare to be disappointed if you want Tom Cruise’s blue silk suit worn in Dubai; it was custom made by Mr. Kaplan himself. At least Cruise’s Persol sunglasses are available to buy, however. Michael Kaplan is a powerhouse force in costume design. He is guaranteed to have worked on at least one Hollywood movie you fondly remember from the last twenty years or so. If in doubt consider he designed Samuel L. Jackson’s pimp ensembles for The Long Kiss Good Night (1996) and Randy Quaid’s bad taste brilliance…

Artist Cathy Lomax has recreated several images from Rosemary’s Baby, analysing the film via costumes worn by its titular central character.

As TracyDi Vicenzo in OHMSS, Diana Rigg wore a daring 1960s wedding ensemble. Lord Christopher Laverty 2 Comments 12 Oct ’12 25 Sep ’18 24 Nov ’10

Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell Directed By: Michel Hazanavicius NB: We recommend you only read this review after having seen the film. The Artist paints a comfortingly nostalgic view of 1920s Hollywood, beginning with the conveyor belt production of silent films in their final years and then slamming head first into a wall of sound. Mark Bridges’ irresistibly pretty and readable costumes chronicle an era that, as The Artist implies, perhaps only ever existed in cinema. There are some actual 1920s era outfits and dresses seen in the film, though most vintage stock was too delicate for the leads. This is a movie that celebrates movies. It is…

Betsy Heimann chats exclusively about one of the most iconic costumes of the 1990s. For HBO Sessions part 2, Clothes on Film editor Chris Laverty was invited to discuss the costume design of Boardwalk Empire. By no means intended as an exhaustive list, Clothes on Film ponder an overview of 2011 in costume. There is a man on Boardwalk Empire with even more sartorial presence than Nucky Thompson; That man is Chalky White. On the eve of Boardwalk Empire: Season 2 commencing, we had a chat with the show’s costume designers John Dunn and Lisa Padovani. On Tuesday 13th September, Clothes on Film makes its television debut chatting about the…

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. This new-found interest may have been partly triggered by the Chinese market’s growing appetite for high-end goods, which despite recent economic setbacks, has left Western luxury brands competing for a share of this very sizeable 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 and standards of beauty. Whilst researching this…

By no means intended as an exhaustive list, Clothes on Film ponder an overview of 2011 in costume. Lord Christopher Laverty 3 Comments 25 Mar ’12 28 Jan ’13 9 May ’14

Sean Connery wore an elegant Victorian coat in The First Great Train Robbery. Lord Christopher Laverty 5 Comments 4 May ’11 15 Oct ’13 14 Jan ’10

Because the sun is out making us all feel like we’re in Cannes, let’s have a look at some of the coolest movie sunglasses money can buy. With exclusive insight from The Hangover costume designer Louise Mingenbach, we investigate how clothing defined character and brought this movie to life.