Levi | Clothes on Film

The higher the waist, the closer to god.

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…

MILD SPOILERS Director Ben Wheatley’s latest, Free Fire, is set in Boston, 1978, but was actually shot in Brighton in 2015. Being as the plot revolves around ten characters involved in a one hour plus shoot-out inside a disused factory, from a sartorial point of view things get rather grubby. The film’s BAFTA nominated costume designer Emma Fryer has already worked with Wheatley on The ABCs of Death (2012) and A Field in England (2013) so is used to the way his stories tend to go bananas in the final reel. Free Fire unfolds practically in real time, which amps up the tension but allows for no mistake with costume.…

Or when your costumes look like a building. Odile Dicks-Mireaux’s designs for High Rise (2016) are far more than that. But for a film set in such a heavily stylised world, especially one created by sci-fi author J.G. Ballard, homogeny is everything. In fact homogeny is terrifying. Everything is reflected in the aesthetic. The building towers, Tom Hiddleston’s trouser legs tower, and Luke Evans towers over everyone.  Director Ben Wheatley has claimed that he did not want High Rise to look like a ‘greatest hits of the seventies‘, but really that’s exactly what he’s got, certainly in terms of costume design – and that’s okay. It might not be the…

Levi’s® Spring Bottom pants are a most fascinating garment. Introduced in 1889 they are essentially jean trousers intended for Victorian (and later Edwardian) gentlemen. This is the first time Levi’s had focused their products on such an audience. Previously their stock in trade was miners and loggers, but this was a very early attempt by the company to branch out. Spring Bottom pants are a classic item of denim history, yet most folk have probably never heard of them. With this in mind we contacted costume designer Jenny Beavan recently and asked if she would consider putting them in the next Sherlock Holmes film. No-one was paying us to do…

A few of the week’s costume titbits. The Butler Costume designer Ruth Carter explains her work on The Butler. Honest, with lots of detail – absolutely worth a read. …and Oprah’s ‘fashion evolution’ in the film. T-shirts “Kiss me I’m Polish”. Cool Supercuts video: a history of t-shirts in movies. As enjoyable as it sounds, i.e. very. Evil Dead Presenting the Evil Dead bikini. It’s hell on your crotch. Kristen M. Burke Wonder what costume design veteran and all round hero Kristin Burke has been up to recently? She’s been making cock socks, that’s what – cock socks designed to under loincloths worn by Mohawk Indians. No rude business, thank…

Enjoyably daft fare with enough fast cars and desirable clobber to keep you cooing until the credits.

Beautiful and affecting, even if it does collapse under the weight of its own earnestness at times.

Sherlock Holmes 2 costume designer Jenny Beavan chats exclusively to Clothes on Film about what to expect in the finished film.

Jackson Pollock spawned a thousand imitators in the art world when he chose to work in denim jeans.

Denim legitimises Warren Beatty’s character as a man capable of more than posing.

Costume designer Carloine Harris has recreates the vibrant look of the 1970s.