costume | Clothes on Film

The importance of costume colour for the colourblind casting of The Personal History of David Copperfield.

The costume style evolution of Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone (1984).

A brief glimpse at the costume world Mark Bridges created for Joker.

A brief video dip into the costume design of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

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…

The latest MCU smash-hit, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), features one of the strangest villains in the wallcrawler’s rogues’ gallery. When it comes to movies based on comic books, the outfit a character like Mysterio wears is not supposed to work on-screen. On the printed pages of comics, the outfits can be impractical and outlandish, and nothing is more of those things than the villain’s fishbowl helmet, lavender cape fastened with giant eyes, and green, scaly tights. Still, costume designer for the film, Anna B. Sheppard, met the challenge of making a fantastic look for Jake Gyllenhaal’s villain. Instead of running away from the crazy roots of the character, she…

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT Clearly Us (2019) director Jordan Peele is as interested in the craft of costume as a tool for storytelling as any means available to him (props, sets, score, bunnies). Peele’s costume designer for his film, Kym Barrett, is highly proficient, a veteran, with such memorable titles as Romeo and Juliet (1996), The Matrix (1999) and The Nice Guys (2016) under her belt. Her contribution is specific and considered – the ‘cut like’ jagged edges in Lupita Nyong’o’s blood soaked attire as Adelaide testament to Barrett’s knowledge of the subtle communication costume can achieve. It is, then, somewhat of a shame that Peele insists on everything in his story…

The Levi jacket worn by Ken Takakura as Ken Tanaka in Japan set thriller The Yakuza (1974, costume design by Dorothy Jeakins) is not Japanese denim. It was not made in Japan but is nonetheless representative of a time when denim as symbol of burgeoning Americana in the East would take off into the stratosphere, and has remained so ever since. Although Levi products were imported into Japan before the 1970s (Levi International was created in 1965), it was not until mid-decade that a Tokyo office was established. This was in response to growing popularity of all things American in Japan, especially denim and especially Levi. There was no single…

SPOILERS If you’ve heard anything about Phantom Thread (2017, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson), you are bound to uncover a multitude of thoughts on the astounding Academy Award winning costume work of Mark Bridges or the retirement role of Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, 1950s fashion house couturier. But one of the key components to Reynolds is missing from the discussion: Autism. Phantom Thread opens with Reynolds (Day-Lewis) getting dressed to formalities of the era. Polished shoes, ironed trousers, a fresh button-down shirt, with the addition of long magenta socks to introduce the notion of creativity, or perhaps particularities to the character. The scene moves to breakfast, which quietly adds…

Filmmaker Nic Fforde discusses how he come to realise the importance of costume design in his projects. Stories in films are all familiar to us in some way, no matter how remote the setting. The hell that unfolds aboard the Nostromo in Alien, LA’s icy criminal underworld in Heat or Rope’s Ivy League dinner party – a good story well told will whisk you away to its own self–contained world. All the tools of filmmaking are there to help create these worlds. What part does costume play in all this? My day job is to make films for advertising. We work on low budgets with small documentary crews. Whatever our…

Brigsby Bear tells the bizarre yet charming tale of a young man, James Pope (Kyle Mooney), who was kidnapped as a baby and subsequently released into the world many years later with no knowledge of it beyond a non-existent kids television show. The film evokes a nostalgic view of the 1980s and, while is contemporary set, gently embraces that period in terms of its aesthetic. Costume designer for Brigsby Bear, Sarah Mae Burton, experienced in both television and film, has created a familiar yet distinctive vibe that feels entirely believable. Here she talks exclusively to Clothes on Film about her process: Clothes on Film: James Pope’s world for twenty five…

Amongst staggering aural and visual assault, perhaps one of the quietest aspects of Dunkirk (2017, directed by Christopher Nolan) are its costumes – and this is to its credit. Dunkirk is the type of film that requires you to engage quickly with everything you see on screen. Jeffrey Kurland’s costume design is masterful in this regard. A sea of subtly differentiated green and brown with the pop of naval uniforms and briefly glimpsed civilian wear. This is 1940 at its most spare and rudimentary. Here, Jeffrey Kurland chats exclusively to Clothes on Film about his process for creating the world of Dunkirk: SPOILERS THROUGHOUT Clothes on Film: How did you…