On 6th July, Clothes on Film were invited to the Designing 007 launch party in London. Apart from quaffing complimentary Bollinger and celeb spotting, we did make several circuits of the exhibition itself. As expected, Designing 007: Fifty Years of Bond Style has a pleasing emphasis on the sartorial, particularly female costume. Vintage discoveries mix with contemporary recreations from all 23 James Bond films in themed rooms dotted across the Barbican Centre. We will not spoil everything because if you can see the exhibition first hand, you should. The rooms themselves are fairly self explanatory: Gold, Ian Fleming, M’s Office, Q Branch, Casino, Foreign Territories, Villains and Enigmas, and Ice…

Basic Instinct is a movie that even its director Paul Verhoeven has described as “nonsense”, yet one cannot argue with the impact of the white dress Sharon Stone wears for the interrogation scene. Plus there is far more going on here than an absence of underwear. When this erotic thriller was released in 1992 it was notorious long before projectors whirred to life. Picketed on set by gay and lesbian groups in San Francisco for what they considered to be a stereotypical and offensive view of homosexuality, the film was lucky to have gotten made at all. Of course this was before the furore over that close up, not to…

Esquire magazine for gentleman with taste and bottomless pockets, have featured a fashion shoot with Toy Story 3’s Ken. That’s right; a doll dresses better than you. Clearly this is not really Ken from Toy Story 3, it is Mattel’s actual Ken, immortalised in the film wearing, it has to be said, even cooler clothes than here (wouldn’t you want to be friends with a guy in animal print shorts?). The brief from Esquire was for four leading fashion designers to dress Ken in key looks for autumn. The finished result is this miniaturised set from their genuine upcoming line. Buy the mag for the full spread, after you’ve checked…

The (somewhat) recently debuted trailer for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers affords just the briefest, intensely edited peek at those 17th century costumes in motion. It’s a lace and linen fest. Alexandre Dumas père’s original story of The Three Musketeers takes place in France before the opulent reign of Louis XIV. This is important because in costume terms the overall style was considerably more sober than in both Henry VIII’s Tudor reign and the French sartorial dominance of the world that was to follow. During the 17th century, fashion was ever changing and evolving, though judging by this trailer costume designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud (The Bourne Identity)…

Clothes from films set during 1930s Author Caroline Young has just released a fascinating new book entitled Hitchcock’s Heroines (published by Insight Editions). It celebrates and studies the women in Hitchcock movies; their influence, semblance and iconography. What’s more, Young also examines the role costume design plays with these women, both the characters and the actresses who played them, and how they can be interpreted as far more than just ‘icy blondes’. Here we have an extract of the book exclusively for Clothes on Film: Kim Novak’s grey suit the colour of San Francisco fog in Vertigo, Grace Kelly as the too-perfect woman in Rear Window, and Janet Leigh’s black…

A new VLOG looking back over the still stunning costume design on of Inception. We revisit sci-fi classic Inception a decade after its release with MVP, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland. 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…

Clothes from films set 2000-now Marina Roberti is the costume designer of the Italian box office hit Sole a Catinelle. She has worked in the US with the likes of Milena Canonero, Sandy Powell and Dante Ferretti… How did you become a costume designer? When I was a kid I was a bumbler at school. I spent all the time drawing and reading. My parents were kind of worried so they decided to enroll me at a fashion college in Turin, my home town. During my last school year they took us to Rome to visit the National Film School. Next year I decided to try and join the school.…

Interviews with directors and costume designers 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:…

Clothes on Film were recently invited to talk about the costume for HBO’s immense fantasy series Game of Thrones. The following video is a kind of Sky Atlantic ‘Thronecast’ vs HBO Sessions mash up. Our segment is four minutes in, but if you are a fan of the show (and who isn’t?) the whole thing is worth watching. Look out too for Sessions’ regulars Georgie Hobbs and Ben Boyer discussing everything from poltics to wolf puppies and rumpy. Obviously we could have waxed lyrical about Michele Clapton’s frantically detailed costume design for far longer but the clock was ticking. What is most exciting about Clapton’s work is how creates a…

The leggy lure of Bombshell. Lord Christopher Laverty Comments Off on Bombshell: Below the Belt 22 Jan ’20 3 Mar ’11 8 Nov ’13