interview | Clothes on Film – Part 3

If you watch supernatural cop show Sleepy Hollow on Fox (Universal in the UK), you will definitely know who Kristin Burke is. Her sartorial contribution to the first season has ingrained the series with a handsome, consistent, yet oddly plausible look. We say ‘oddly’ because the show is, for want of a better term, completely batshit crazy; a mix of 18th century drama and modern day X-Files, involving headless horsemen, a tree monster, deadly black vein disease, and all manner of creepy mythology based beasties. It’s terrific fun. Kristin M. Burke is what we would politely call a veteran costume designer, over 50 films to her name, although not someone…

From Chris Laverty’s regular column ‘Fabric of Cinema’ for Arts Illustrated magazine, here is an abridged version of the most recently published essay ‘A Migration of Talent’. The current issue of Arts Illustrated focuses on those that have moved across geographical boundaries to expand the scope of their work. It has long been the norm for costume designers from the UK to relocate, not necessarily permanently, to Hollywood. Their careers have been forged by the demands of the business they compete in. But what would have happened if, say, Sandy Powell (Shakespeare in Love), or Joanna Johnston (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) had never worked beyond these shores? How would their…

‘Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theatres in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine—the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog—and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon, and Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard.‘ That is the boilerplate pitch for The Muppets Most Wanted. Verbatim. If you think that sounds like…

A slight but worth watching video about the costume and production design for frothy Walt Disney biography Saving Mr. Banks. If you have not seen the film it won’t spoil anything, and will probably get you wanting to dress in sixties suits and dresses again, like Mad Men did in the early days.

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,…

Man of Steel costume designer reveals fascinating insight about the film.

Second and final part of our retrospective of The Grifters with insight from Mark Bridges.

Exclusive Q&A with costume designer Amy Westcott about the After Earth life suit.

First in our two part retrospective of neo-noir classic The Grifters with exclusive insight from the film’s assistant costume designer Mark Bridges.

Michael Kaplan gives Clothes on Film the lowdown on his Star Trek Into Darkness costumes.

Costume designer Michael Kaplan reminisces with Clothes on Film about creating dark tourist Marla Singer in Fight Club.

The 1970s was a scary era, not least for clothes. The Conjuring costume designer Kristin M. Burke tells us more.