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,…

The scruffy gumshoe style of Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (1987). With very special trousers. A brief glimpse at the costume world Mark Bridges created for Joker. Jacqueline Oknaian has costumed Ugly Betty (2008-10), Sex and the City 2 (2010) and The Big C (2012-13), so it might be fair to say contemporary clothing is her forte. For The Intern she dressed Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro in that most tricky of cinematic costume: ‘office attire’. Fashion and practicality collide in what needs to be stylish but relatable clothing inside a believable setting. Here Ms Oknaian chats exclusively about her work on the film. Anne Hathaway has the perfect…

A rundown of why Hollywood Costume at the V&A is the best event you will see all year. Hollywood costume comes to London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in the most exciting exhibition of its type ever announced.

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……

The latest MCU smash-hit, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), features one of the strangest villains in the wallcrawler’s rogues’ gallery. When it comes to movies based on comic books, the outfit a character like Mysterio wears is not supposed to work on-screen. On the printed pages of comics, the outfits can be impractical and outlandish, and nothing is more of those things than the villain’s fishbowl helmet, lavender cape fastened with giant eyes, and green, scaly tights. Still, costume designer for the film, Anna B. Sheppard, met the challenge of making a fantastic look for Jake Gyllenhaal’s villain. Instead of running away from the crazy roots of the character, she……

Where to start with Penny Rose? Pirates of the Caribbean? Evita? King Arthur? Most recently of course 47 Ronin (directed by Carl Rinsch). You do not hire Penny Rose for something small. This is not to say she won’t work on independent and low budget projects, just that her CV is becoming increasingly packed with huge scale period and/or fantasy studio movies – basically the kind of pictures that would make most costume designers weep. Multiples, armour, uniforms, plus Ms. Rose practically always builds from scratch. Not a fan of ‘shopping’ or even slightly interested in fashion, Penny Rose is old-school hands on, no-nonsense and no fear. Nonetheless, there is……

This is the most fun and elaborate outfit Grace Kelly wears in To Catch a Thief. Lord Christopher Laverty 8 Comments 19 Aug ’09 2 Mar ’11 25 Jul ’11

A brief video dip into the costume design of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Fabrics jump out of the screen in this trailer for 12 Years a Slave. Django Unchained costume designer Sharen Davis exclusively explains her work on the film. Costume designer Sharen Davis finds a good fit with Tarantino; their Deep South bounty hunter Django is a visibly memorable protagonist crying out for a sequel. Could Django Unchained be the first Quentin Tarantino movie to win a Costume Design Oscar? Not the only book you should buy about costume design, but probably the best. Betsy Heimann chats exclusively about one of the most iconic costumes of 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,……

This is the most fun and elaborate outfit Grace Kelly wears in To Catch a Thief. Lord Christopher Laverty 8 Comments 26 Aug ’11 23 Jun ’09 21 Sep ’10