Part two of our essay looking at sartorial identity in Sons of Anarchy, featuring exclusive insight from series costume designer Kelli Jones. Catch up with part 1 HERE. The women of SAMCRO include porn stars and pole dancers, but the club matriarch is Gemma played by Katey Sagal, formerly known as Peg Bundy in Married with Children. Gemma is the Queen of this world so her look is regal rock chick, “to make her look badass without looking like a slut. This sexy mama bitch doesn’t need to TRY” costume designer Kelli Jones says. With her background in music (she has performed with the likes of Bette Midler, Gene Simmons……

Few films have tried to deal with child bereavement and the nature of fatherhood, which is why The Boys Are Back (2010) is so refreshing. It thrusts the issue right out in front of the audience and may cause every father watching to re-think his own parental approach. Based on the memoirs of The Independent political columnist Simon Carr, The Boys Are Back tells the story of Joe (Clive Owen), who has recently lost his wife to cancer and is left to raise his six year-old son by himself. Soon after, his elder son from another marriage travels to Austraila to live with him. During this time Joe employs a…

Exclusively for Clothes on Film, writer and broadcaster Ashley Clark explores the influential and highly symbolic costume design of Do the Right Thing (1989). With its explosive mix of comedy, drama and racial politics, Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing remains one of the most controversial and powerful films of the 80’s. Much of its enduring popularity can be attributed to an iconic aesthetic achieved through a combination of the writer-director-star’s expansive yet intimate vision, Ernest Dickerson’s glowing cinematography and -Ruth E. Carter’s vibrant, expressive costume work. Carter’s contribution is vital in three key areas: establishing a sense of place and adding depth to the characters, supporting the film’s themes,…

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…

MINOR SPOILERS For all the inevitable chrysalis transformation of singer Ally (Lady Gaga) during A Star is Born (2018, directed by Bradley Cooper), the most subtle, yet real sartorial reflection of character belongs to her mentor and lover Jack (Cooper). Costumed by Erin Benach (Drive, A Place Beyond the Pines), Jack is the epitome of the casual rock star. Stage wear, day wear, evening wear, drinking wear, sleeping wear – it’s all the same. His simple clothes mask a mind so damaged it can only be subdued with the bottle. Jack lives in t-shirts (plain, dark or neutral colours), untucked shirts (dark or a green graph-check), brown calf leather jacket,…

Letters and 48 designer outfits belonging to Audrey Hepburn went under the hammer in London yesterday raising £268,320 with half the proceeds going to charity. A whopping £60,000 alone went on her black lace cocktail dress and jacket by Givenchy for the film How to Steal a Million (1966). The collection, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions, was owned by lifelong friend of Audrey Hepburn, Tanja Star-Busmann. It comprised, amongst others, a Mark Cross striped knitted top worn by Hepburn during the shoot for War and Peace (1957), a domed green velvet hat with pom-pom streamers by Givenchy (1964), a blue silk cocktail dress from Autumn 1966 worn in ’67 to…

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……

Neo-noir is an unusual genre from a costume perspective because although rooted in reality it is generally not specific to one era or setting. This means a variety of influences fill the screen incorporating past, present and future suggesting a particular story could be told anywhere at any time. Yet with noir’s literary and cinematic heyday belonging to 1940s, certain period details are necessary in order to satisfy that vital element of the genre and its all subsidiaries: atmosphere. The Grifters (1990, directed by Stephen Frears) is about as bleak as noir gets. Its central characters are shysters; they live on the wrong side of the law, fleece the innocent…

Two different costume opinions on one film. Our first Dual Analysis with Costumer’s Guide. To kick off, here is what Chris from Clothes on Film had to say. We discuss the clothing, jewellery, even underwear of The Young Victoria with Maggie from The Costumer’s Guide. The Big Lebowski is brilliantly designed; the characters are concisely and efficiently illustrated, says KB from FrockTalk.com. Let’s tell you why The Big Lebowski costume design rocked in an almost completely non-subtextual way. Recently Clothes on Film chatted with Kristin Burke from FrockTalk about The Big Lebowski. We discussed weightlifting pants and feminism. Part two of a new Dual Analysis. Costume designer Kristin Burke from…

There are already a lot of excellent interviews with Oscar winning Beauty and the Beast costume designer Jacqueline Durran online, so with our limited communication we wanted to ask a little more about Belle’s (Emma Watson) day-to-day ensemble and the creation of Gaston’s attire (Luke Evans), arguably the closest character to his 1991 animated counterpart. Ms. Durran, currently hard at work on a new project, was kind enough to provide a few brief responses: Clothes on Film: How did you go about creating costumes for a computer generated Beast? Jacqueline Durran: When I first started prep on the movie the Beast was going to be a prosthetic beast. Had this……