fashion | Clothes on Film

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

As a new feature for Clothes on Film, we will uploading regular videos (say every couple of weeks) to YouTube examining the costume design of new and classic movies, plus selected television and trailers. This is mainly because Clothes on Film’s creator and editor Christopher Laverty (waves) has been busy on other projects (ahem, buy the book) and has not had the opportunity to update the site as much as he’d like. Returning to more regular posting, it felt like a change was needed as there are already over 400 articles currently on here. Hence the idea of video. There will be some written articles added, but for the most…

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…

Daphne du Maurier‘s original novel My Cousin Rachel apparently does not specify the exact period in which it’s set, but implies some time toward the end of the 19th century on the Cornish coast. This new version of the story starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin actually positions itself in a specific time frame, as decided upon by director Roger Michell and costume designer Dinah Collin, namely the year 1840. We have an exclusive featurette about the costume design of My Cousin Rachel, which although brief goes into some detail about what to expect from the finished film: What is most fascinating is just why 1840 was chosen. It was…

To tie-in with the release of Disney’s new live-action version of Beauty and Beast, the project’s Oscar winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran teamed up with students from Central Saint Martin’s college in London to reinterpret ensembles from the film. These are outfits designed in homage to Beauty and the Beast, taking specific elements here and there, a song, colour or concept and creating something entirely new. Whether these are fashion or art pieces is ultimately unclear – what stands out though is their reach beyond that of merely marketing a big movie. Just as an idea it would be fantastic to see more films promoting their costumes in this way.…

Twenty-five years ago, costume designer Margot Wilson was a student living in Paris when she picked up a roll of red, moire silk fabric during a shopping trip to Milan. She didn’t know why, or what for; she wasn’t even a costume designer then, just a talented young fashion grad from East Sydney Tech on a six-month scholarship to France. When it was time to go home, she took the beautiful roll of fabric back down under with her. Fast forward three decades and a couple of dozen films later (including Lantana, Bran Nue Dae and Lawless), and Wilson has finally found a screen role for her magnificent weave –…

Jacqueline Oknaian has costumed Ugly Betty (2008-10), Sex and the City 2 (2010) and The Big C (2012-13), so it might be fair to say contemporary clothing is her forte. For The Intern she dressed Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro in that most tricky of cinematic costume: ‘office attire’. Fashion and practicality collide in what needs to be stylish but relatable clothing inside a believable setting. Here Ms Oknaian chats exclusively about her work on the film. Anne Hathaway has the perfect office wardrobe, where did you get your inspiration for her smart, but chic looks? I related to her character personally because I’m a mother and I’ve worked…

When Arnold Scaasi opened his couture salon in 1964, he soon became a couturier to the stars. He was already a favoured designer for Barbra Streisand when he famously dressed her for the 1969 Oscars. Streisand was up for Best Actress for her movie debut in Funny Girl and was established as something of an ‘individual’; usually described as ‘kooky’, she was completely different from anyone else, an innovator of style, and challenging and changing the ideas of beauty. So it is no surprise that when it came to her clothing choice for the Oscars, Streisand resisted the usual protocol of an evening gown and instead opted for a most…

From stills of this film alone you could easily be forgiven in thinking that I am Love (Io sono l’amore, 2009) was set during the 1960s. The designer clothes draped worn by lead members of the Recchi family, as selected by costumer Antonella Cannarozzi, are generally minimalist, in plain colours with little embellishment. I am Love is actually set in Europe around 2000, but its central characters are trapped as the well-heeled repressed of the sixties. Just as sexual, artistic and cultural expression was blossoming, the old guard struggled to make sense of this new world so regressed even more vehemently into their old one. The Recchi’s seem to live…

Director Brian De Palma has made movies heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock before, but Passion (2012) is the first one whose characters look like they stepped out of one of Hitchcock’s classic films. Karen Muller-Serreau’s bold and colourful costumes communicate the characters’ hidden desires and make watching Passion a sensory experience. This melodrama centres on two ad executives, Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) and her boss Christine (Rachel McAdams), who have a deadline to come up with an ad campaign for a new smartphone. In her sleep, Isabelle thinks of a great idea. The two other principal characters are Isabelle’s assistant Dani (Karoline Herfurth) and Christine’s boyfriend Dirk (Paul Anderson) who get…

Note from the Editor: You may have noticed that Clothes on Film has not been updated as frequently recently. We’ve had some excellent analysis and a few strong interviews, but in general content has been considerably lighter than usual. Well there is a reason for this… I have recently signed my first publishing deal to produce a book about, unsurprisingly, clothes in film. Specifically this will be a book about fashion in film. Apologies if this reads a tad vague; I promise more details will follow in the coming months. I will say now, however, that it is not just another tome describing pretty dresses or sharp suits in movies,…