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fedora | Clothes on Film
Examining the shirt collars of all the gentleman in 1941 noir classic, The Maltese Falcon. A preview of Clothes on Film editor Christopher Laverty’s article on the vibrant costume design of Dick Tracy for Arts Illustrated magazine. Truly unique, Dick Tracy is as close to a comic strip brought to life as any film before or since. This was director and star Warren Beatty’s goal; not to interpret the comic, but to paint it directly onto a cinematic canvas. He achieved this by embracing the superficial qualities of the painted page, the bright colours, exaggerated structures, madcap caricatures, and placing them front and centre. Dick Tracy is an all knowing…
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The Social Network | Clothes on Film
Ben Affleck’s pseudo-cowboy costume in Argo harks back to the golden age of the sports jacket. Editor Chris Laverty explains how to ‘read’ costume on film. From an article originally published in Moviescope magazine. The 83rd Academy Award nominations were not especially surprising, but for Best Costume Design category there were a couple of major upsets. The Costume Designers Guild (CDG) has served up their nominations for this year.
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Mission Impossible | Clothes on Film
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 12 Oct ’18 19 Jun ’15 27 Feb ’12 Enjoyably daft fare with enough fast cars and desirable clobber to keep you cooing until the credits. Lord Christopher Laverty 10 Comments 14 Jun ’10 25 Oct ’13 16 Oct ’12
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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Dressed Trailer | Clothes on Film
Looking so sexily brilliant that the finished film can be nothing but a huge disappointment (kidding), this first teaser trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ticks all the right seventies period costume boxes. UPDATE (4TH AUG): And now we have a full trailer… To watch this video, you need the latest Flash-Player and active javascript in your browser. Set in what looks to be around the mid-late decade, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (directed by Tomas Alfredson) is a feature update of John le Carré’s novel about a ‘mole hunt’ within Mi6. Having already been filmed as a really quite creepy TV series in 1979 starring Alec Guinness as spy master…
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Ann Foley | Clothes on Film
So what’s been happening this week then? Blue Jasmine ‘In costuming the past we lose the present.’ Wonder Woman Michael Wilkinson has basically said nothing about Wonder Woman’s outfit, yet we’re still hanging on his every word. Mad Men Jessica Paré chats about the show’s costumes and her own ‘French with a rock edge’ style. Dallas Costume designer Rachel Sage talks about her work on the TNT reboot. The Oscars Catherine Martin wins and wins BIG. Kudos. Red carpet fashion Tyranny of Style casts his educated gaze over the winners and losers. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D More Tyranny of Style, this time revisiting Ann Foley’s stylish contribution to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D……
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Costume Stories, This Week: Indiana Jones and Godzilla | Clothes on Film
Catch up with the costume gossip you’ve missed. Godzilla “Contemporary in design with a multitude of uniforms”, says costume designer Sharen Davis. We remember chatting to Ms. Davis about her work on Godzilla during an interview for Django Unchained – she was so stoked to be working with director Gareth Edwards. X-Men: Days of Future Past Q&A with ace Louise Mingenbach which we haven’t read because we haven’t seen the movie yet. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom For the film’s 30th birthday an enticing look back at Anthony Powell’s costume design by Tim Pelan for Cinetropolis. Game of Thrones More secrets in the costumes, unless you want to…
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screen style | Clothes on Film
The latest book by fashion historian, and now TV presenter Amber Butchart (A Stitch in Time on BBC 4 – second season please), is a comprehensively researched stroll through the best dressed folk ever to exist on the planet. The Fashion Chronicles: The Style Stories of History’s Best Dressed is laid out to be effortlessly readable, split into sections ranging from Ancient (and we mean ancient; basically like the first clothes ever) to 20th and 21st Century. Each entry gets a couple of pages of engaging historical notes and background justifying their inclusion along with a photo / picture or two. It works; it doesn’t feel like study or revision,…
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The Fountain | Clothes on Film
A ferocious work from a filmmaker at the height of his game, Black Swan is an incredibly satisfying piece of cinema. Clothes on Film chatted with Darren Aronofsky about the challenges of portraying perfection in Black Swan, method acting and The Wolverine.
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Richard Gere | Clothes on Film
Internal Affairs (1990) is an excellent stone cold thriller. The costumes are a subtle tease, revealing personal information that the characters never say out loud. Like many movies released in the late 1980s/1990s, Internal Affairs radiates uneasiness caused by shifting societal attitudes – anything that threatens a straight male chauvinist black-and-white world. Costume designer Rudy Dillon punches through this black-and-white world with ensembles that poke fun at the status quo and subsequently subvert them with eroticism, perhaps ironically using only a colour scheme of black and white. The straight white male chauvinist is Dennis Peck (Richard Gere), a police officer in Los Angeles who controls his colleagues by involving them……
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Josh Brolin | Clothes on Film
The colours and codes of the costume design in No Country for Old Men. The glossy costume world of gangster squad is faithful to history, but not a slave to it. Clothes on Film has four Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps goodie bags to give away. Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick talks exclusively to Clothes on Film about the look of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.