Savile Row tailors Kilgour provided much of Cary Grant’s wardrobe for North by Northwest (1959). In all probability director Alfred Hitchcock left Grant to his own devices in selecting ensembles, just as he’d done on To Catch a Thief four years earlier. If this was in fact the case, Hitchcock was not so trusting with Eva Marie Saint’s wardrobe. Disliking initial design sketches for her look, he escorted Marie Saint to New York’s swanky Bergdorf Goodman department store, personally choosing her outfits right off the racks. She later jokingly referred to Hitch as her “one and only sugar daddy”. As for Cary Grant, by this stage in his career it…

Costume designer for Running Scared (2006), Kristin M. Burke, has kindly chatted to us about her contribution to the movie. Being a long time friend of Clothes on Film, she opened up her big book of anecdotes specially. For anyone even remotely interested in costume design this is essential reading. Running Scared (directed by Wayne Kramer) is a restless action thriller; an enjoyable, if visually exhausting and violent fairytale. Paul Walker stars as Joey Gazelle, a low-level mob hood frantically searching for a ‘hot’ weapon he was supposed to stash, while pursed by crooked cops and an impatient mafia family. Vera Farmiga features as Joey’s loyal yet independent wife Teresa,…

We visited Brooks Brothers to check out their costume display from The Great Gatsby. In a week of exciting trailers, the first for director Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby must surely be the most thrilling of all. This might be the most famous and copied outfit Grace Kelly ever wore.

Interviews with directors and costume designers The near future romance Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, whose widely diverse resume ranges from the world of music videos to MTV’s Jackass to major motion pictures, brought together a creative team that costume designer Casey Storm refers to as “friends first, and co-workers second.” Storm and production designer K.K. Barrett create a soft, comfortable world of tomorrow. Shot on location around Los Angeles and Shanghai, Barrett avoided familiar locations to create a world that is accessible but not overtly recognisable. Our first introduction to the world feels very familiar. Seated in an office in a simple button up, Joaquin Phoenix’s character,…

MINOR SPOILERS At a pivotal juncture during the Fathers & Sons episode of Godless (2017), the camera tracks into a pink ribbon tied on the back of young woman’s hair; a woman who is suffering from the onset symptoms of smallpox and unlikely to find recovery. Later in the episode we pan across dozens of freshly dug but unnamed graves each with it’s own crucifix. We don’t see the woman again, but on one of the crucifixes is tied a pink ribbon. Such is the power of even the slightest costume and accessory details in Godless, the narrative is informed by their very presence. Costume designer for Godless was Betsy……

Costume designer Michael Kaplan took time away from Star Trek 2 to chat exclusively to Clothes on Film about Ghost Protocol. Lord Christopher Laverty 32 Comments 27 Mar ’13 22 Jan ’20 27 Aug ’10

This is a personal post about designing my custom made James Bond shirt. It is not an advertorial and wasn’t paid for. All photographs are of the final finished shirt(s) and taken by David Wade of Vogue Shot photography. There are now ample custom shirt makers online, but as a pre-existing customer of Deo Veritas what made this company stand out for me was a steadfast, almost stubborn desire to get everything ‘just so’. Seemingly no query or request is too much trouble. Bearing this in mind I tasked Deo Veritas with recreating a shirt I have always sought yet been unable to find off the peg or in my……

It is impossible not to have fun watching Avengers Assemble. Costume designer Michael Kaplan took time away from Star Trek 2 to chat exclusively to Clothes on Film about Ghost Protocol. Enjoyably daft fare with enough fast cars and desirable clobber to keep you cooing until the credits.

To celebrate Grease Sing-a-Long coming to Vue cinemas this month, we have five goodie bags to give away. Go Rydell! Sandy looks lovely, arguably lovelier than The Pink Ladies, but she looks like the sweet young lady a mother-in-law would adore. Betty ‘Rizzo’ played by Stockard Channing is not only the most complex character in Grease, but in costume terms fascinating.

Fred Williamson as Tommy Gibbs adopts the gangster codes of 1930s cinema in blaxploitation classic Black Caesar. Lord Christopher Laverty Comments Off on Black Caesar: Blaxploitation Gangster 6 Jun ’18 5 Aug ’11 14 Jul ’09