With the trailer for After Earth revealing an intriguing ‘life suit’ worn by Jaden Smith, we round up the best space suit related posts from our archive. Fascinating video about Hardy Amies costumes for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The subtle differentiation of character through costume design in Moon. In the first of a two-part special, we examine how important costumes from the Alien films are in contextualising primal terror.

Photographer Terry O’Neill has been snapping shots of James Bond behind the scenes since his arrival in 1962. This book, tied together with essays written by journalists, cultural historians and interviews with Bond girls is a collection of O’Neill’s finest and most revealing work. Though many of the images have not been widely published, O’Neill’s work is easily recognisable by his eavesdropping, yet highly artistic style. Surely you have seen that classic shot of Bond creator Ian Fleming close-up in dotted silk cravat smoking a cigarette? O’Neill took it. Despite some perfunctory text, All About Bond wisely focuses on O’Neill’s photographs. The best feature Sean Connery goofing about on set,…

Exclusive Q&A with costume designer Amy Westcott about the After Earth life suit. Amy Westcott talks exclusively to Clothes on Film about her process on Black Swan, that Oscar snub and the recent controversy surrounding herself and Rodarte. A ferocious work from a filmmaker at the height of his game, Black Swan is an incredibly satisfying piece of cinema. Clothes on Film chatted with Darren Aronofsky about the challenges of portraying perfection in Black Swan, method acting and The Wolverine.

Actually that title is a tad misleading – it’s all the clothes worn by Lee Marvin as kick-ass-tough-guy-on-a-mission Walker in Point Blank. This is the second video in a new Clothes on Film feature breaking down costume design in sartorially interesting (or just way cool) movies and, in some cases, television.  Costumed by Margo Weintz, Point Blank is stone-cold neo-noir thriller, one of the best of its kind, focusing on Marvin’s Walker and his score settling against those who double crossed and left him for dead on an abandoned Alcatraz island. The film is known for its sharp suits, which are all covered in the video, but also for some……

If you’re not watching BBC 2’s gangster western Peaky Blinders, stop reading now and seek it out on iPlayer – there’s still one episode left so you have time to join the party. Peaky Blinders is the slow burning tale of a volatile, family led criminal gang, headed by calculating brother Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), and their rise to power in post-World War I Birmingham. It does not sound glamorous and it isn’t, yet is all the more compelling for embracing the filthy side of what many considered to be the cusp of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. Not in Birmingham it wasn’t. Thankfully Peaky Blinders had costume designer Stephanie Collie (Lock,…

The Costume Designers Guild Award nominations right some wrongs and ignore quite a few others. Wes Anderson’s most sartorially significant film yet. By no means intended as an exhaustive list, Clothes on Film ponder an overview of 2011 in costume.

Goldmember (2002, directed by Jay Roach), the final film (so far) in the Austin Powers series again shifts its timeline. However, rather than a negligible, though comparatively significant, jump from late to very late 1960s, here we dive into that most raucous of decades – the 1970s. And then back to 2002 (do keep up). For costume designer Deena Appel (pictured above, bottom left with Jay Roach) it was a wildly ambitious undertaking. Not to mention the film also features a well-known music and movie star, just about to launch into the stratosphere: Beyoncé. Speaking exclusively to Clothes on Film and closing out our epic in-depth look at the Austin……

Christmas comes early for anyone looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises (that’s all of us then); as Warner Bros. has released a full trailer telling us absolutely everything we need to know before the film hits cinemas next July, i.e. nothing. This is not quite true; the trailer is a good one. It tantalises without giving anything much away regarding plot that we do not already know. Gotham is on the eve of a revolution, hinted at by sultry Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), aka Catwoman, and seemingly instigated by the near silent menace of Bane (Tom Hardy). It is an uprising against the privileged and decadent, something that has…

When Clothes on Film visited The Muppets Most Wanted set back in March of 2013, we were given a tour of the bustling ‘wardrobe’ (their words) department, as overseen by costume designer Rahel Afiley. You can read more about that HERE, but after chasing Ms. Afiley around the room while she was trying to work, we managed to get a bit more out of her about using designer fashion, i.e. Vivienne Westwood, in the film. As always we are pushing the same old costume/fashion debate, though in this instance hearing from a costume designer on the front line is rather enlightening. Focusing specifically on Miss Piggy, for she is the……

Our thoughts on the costume design in the season 6 premiere of Mad Men. As account man Roger Sterling, John Slattery tended to wear a light grey three piece suit; right up until he donned a sharp double breasted for the first time.