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,…

MINOR SPOILERS Like any film with an extended period of time between the original and sequel(s), T2: Trainspotting (2017) is required to form an immediate connection with its audience. Twenty years have passed, yet we must feel accustomed to this world. For every element of change, something else must remain the same. We take comfort in what we know; it allows us to enjoy the new without fear of the unknown. If T2 had been released a couple of years after Trainspotting (1996), it could potentially have been set in Benidorm. Transplanting our anti-heroes from Scotland to Spain is fine when they are fresh in our conscious mind, but twenty…

Clothes on Film were fortunate enough to be invited to a display of costumes from the latest adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express (2017), plus interview its costume designer Alexandra Byrne. An Oscar winner for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008), and well known for her period design work, since 2011 Byrne has become connected to the world of Marvel, her most recent project being Doctor Strange in 2016. Here she chats candidly about recreating the (mainly) glamorous side of the early 1930s and the challenges that faced her and her team. Alexandra Byrne on shooting in 70 mm: “Director Ken (Branagh) and I did Hamlet (1996) together which was…

Clothes on Film has been featured in publications all over the world, on TV, radio and newspapers, plus has a strong social media presence. Check out my Twitter feed, Facebook page and Instagram. There’s also a Pinterest page but honestly it’s not updated much anymore. Two big stories that I was proud Clothes on Film ‘broke’ was the revelation that despite what they had been telling the press, Rodarte were not the costume designers of Black Swan. It took a frank interview with the actual costume designer of the film, Amy Westcott, to clarify that. This story was picked up everywhere from The Guardian to The New York Times. I’m…

SPOILERS Ahead of a detailed interview with Star Wars: The Force Awakens costume designer Michael Kaplan (currently hard at work on Episode VIII), we take a brief look at his undeniable achievement in bringing the 1970s – early 80’s back to life right here in the present. How do you make the now look old when paradoxically it is supposed to be the new? Well, you go simple. We say simple, but we mean ‘back to basics’. This is not the prequels; The Force Awakens takes place thirty years after the Rebellion defeated the Empire. Now both sides are in state of rebuilding so there is little call for Padmae’s…

Director Bryan Singer has tweeted a revealing photograph of James McAvoy in costume as Charles Xavier on set of X-Men: Days of Future Past. UPDATE (13/05/13): And now he has added another pic, this time of Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Days of Future Past is based on an Uncanny X-Men story published in 1981; part of the story takes place during 1973, part in the future as the original X-Men cast zip through time to stop the world being attacked by mutant sentinels. Xavier seems to be nursing a hippie hangover in this photo, somewhat reminiscent of a scruffier John Tavolta in Saturday Night…

MINOR SPOILERS First Man (2018) is not a movie overly preoccupied with fashion, And why would it be? The focus of the story is astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his journey to become the first person to ever walk on the surface of the moon. Armstrong wears a lot of button down shirts, short sleeve checks, neutral slacks, the odd dark single breasted suit for formal occasions – largely dour attire for a dour man. He also wears a space suit, several of them. However, outside of Emilio Pucci’s involvement in designing the logo for the Apollo 15 flight in 1971, fashion rarely intersects with the requirements of surviving…

This insightful comedy about the hopelessness of love is every inch a ‘fashion film’, both in terms of narrative and thanks to costume designer Dayna Pink’s enviable parade of menswear trends and elegant suiting. Crazy, Stupid, Love (directed by Glenn Ficara and John Requa) stars Steve Carell as Cal Weaver, a middle aged man who has forgotten how to be a man and Ryan Gosling as Jacob Palmer, a bar culture player who helps Cal regain his self respect. Clothes in the film are prioritised over the man. They denote what we wear reflects how we evolve. Or in the case of Cal during the very first scene, how we…

Kathleen Kennedy is one of the most successful movie producers in the world. Her films have earned over $5 billion in gross and the majority are household names: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Back to the Future (1985), Jurassic Park (1993), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), the list runs on and on. Chatting exclusively to Clothes on Film, Ms Kennedy explains how her role as producer impacts that of costume designer, specifically in regards her latest project War Horse (directed by Steven Spielberg). When we meet Kathleen Kennedy she is friendly, enthusiastic and keen to commend the work of War Horse’s costume designer, Joanna Johnston – “You…

Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan Directed By: Steven Spielberg War Horse is desperately pretty, sentimental and heartfelt to the point of exhaustion. In other words the return of late 1980s, very early 90’s schmaltzy Spielberg. Whether this is something to celebrate or lament we shall leave up to you. Steven Spielberg shoots through the eyes of a talented illustrator. Filthy trenches, plumes of poison gas, a disastrous Calvary charge; all as beautiful as they are horrific. Add in the continuous swell of John Williams’ score and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski‘s yolky sunsets (no cgi) and War Horse is every frame a Spielberg movie. Not subtle, the final act or…