Director Peter Jackson’s big budget King Kong (2005) remake is set in 1933 (same as the original). This is slap bang in the middle of America’s Great depression, tasking costume designer Terry Ryan with creating looks that replicate the obvious poverty of the time plus the go-for-broke ensembles adopted by many people for glamorous night time events and parties. Ryan costumed King Kong heroine Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) in two distinct categories: New York attire and film within a film outfits, i.e. those worn on board the ship to Skull Island and while on the island itself. Ann’s New York look is largely in keeping with the era; although with…

On Tuesday 13th September, Clothes on Film makes its debut on U.S. television. Specifically, site editor Chris Laverty chats about the amazing costume design of Boardwalk Empire for a documentary entitled ‘The Money Decade’ at 9.45 pm on HBO (may differ for regional variations). Of course we do not want to blow our own trumpet too much, but this was surely worth a mention. Tune in if you can. It is actually an interesting programme covering Burlesque, the Jazz era and fashion trends of the early 1920s. Apart from Clothes on Film, you will find contributions from Boardwalk Empire costume designers John Dunn & Lisa Padovani, in addition to a…

Mark Strong as Hani Salaam is sole sartorial encouragement in Body of Lies (2008), a movie choc full of (intentionally) awful clothes. With headliners Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe dressed inconspicuously as possible, DiCaprio in tracksuit bottoms and untucked shirts and Crowe entirely in Target, Strong’s razor-sharp Jordanian intelligence chief is granted ample opportunity to shine. HANI SALAAM (as CIA man ROGER FARIS grabs him by the arm) Please, let go of the jacket. Damn right. Mark Strong’s wardrobe was outfitted by Huntsman of Savile Row. Body of Lies costume designer Janty Yates did not have time to have his suits tailored, so hoped instead to find something off the…

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…

Poor Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner). She is only a young teenager and yet like most characters in Game of Thrones she has been forced to grow up far too fast. This ongoing character development is echoed in her clothes by series costume designer Michele Clapton. We first meet Sansa in season 1 of Game of Thrones at her home in Winterfell. Her clothes are simple. The knotted decoration around the neckline of her dresses and the harsher fabrics echo the rough terrain of the North. She chooses shades of grey and blue, matching the murky colours of her environment. The dress she wears for the party held in honor of…

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…

A brief glimpse at the costume world Mark Bridges created for Joker. Examining the shirt collars of all the gentleman in 1941 noir classic, The Maltese Falcon. A brief video dip into the costume design of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Actually that title is a tad misleading – it’s all the clothes worn by Lee Marvin as kick-ass-tough-guy-on-a-mission Walker in… As a new feature for Clothes on Film, we will uploading regular videos (say every couple of weeks) to YouTube… The latest MCU smash-hit, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), features one of the strangest villains in the wallcrawler’s rogues’ gallery.… SPOILERS THROUGHOUT Clearly Us (2019) director Jordan Peele…

Featuring couture as cool and disaffecting its protagonist, Belle de Jour (1967, directed by Luis Buñuel) has much to say through its ambiguous antiplot narrative and can be read effectively through costume. Catherine Deneuve plays Séverine, a bourgeois housewife unable to commit sexually to her husband Pierre (Jean Sorel). Instead she fulfils her sadomasochistic fantasies by becoming prostitute ‘Belle de jour’ at an intimately run brothel. Every afternoon between two and five Séverine services clients of various persuasions as her eyes are gradually opened to the possibility of sexual satisfaction. Yet the deeper she digs the more her bourgeois existence is threatened. Eventually Séverine quits the brothel and returns to…

Want to know exactly what a costume designer does? Let Ellen Mirojnick, BAFTA nominated costume designer on films such as Wall Street, Chaplin, and Cloverfield explain it to you. Here she talks exclusively to Clothes on Film. Clothes on Film, Chris: Can you tell us, as simply as possible, what the role of a movie costume designer is? Ellen Mirojnick: The costume designer is responsible for creating each character’s look that will be the visual translation of the directors’ vision of the film. COF: Do all costume designers make costumes themselves? EM: I don’t sew or stitch myself. I am sure there are some designers who do, but generally the…

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,…