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…

The Girl Most Likely To (1973) is a little seen made-for-TV film for all those who have been laughed at, dumped on or felt in any way degraded because of their looks. Originally shown as the ABC Movie of the Week, this revengeful black comedy penned by Joan Rivers has rightfully garnered somewhat of a cult following due to its subject matter to which so many can relate. Stockard Channing plays Miriam Knight, “a beautiful person who had been kidnapped by an ugly body”. Even before physical features are taken into account, her clothes say it all. The whole concoction for her first day at her new university is like…

Jennifer Garner’s costumes in 13 Going On 30 (2004) are some of the most fun for a romantic comedy of recent years. In a plot which sees gawky teenager Jenna Rink (Garner) flash thirteen years into the future to find herself editor of Poise fashion magazine, it is unsurprising if the clothes she wears are somewhat…ahem….‘colourful’. At the start of the film, when Jenna is indeed 13, there is an array of 1980s fashions on show, including pale dyed denims, bejewelled off-the-shoulder tops and colours so bright they are practically luminous. Costume designer Susie DeSanto (Miss Congeniality, 2000) really went to town. When time jumps forward, however, and Jenna is…

SPOILERS Despite all the hoo-ha over films such as Blue Jasmine and Stoker contemporary is still pretty much overlooked as a form of costume design. If it’s invisible, well, nobody notices it, and if it’s designer it becomes all about ‘the fashion’ (OMG TOTES WANT THOSE SHOES). We are currently in an age when costume design means period and sci-fi. It comes to the extent that if a costumer wants to tell a story through contemporary attire, he/she needs either a director with a key grasp of semiotics, or one that doesn’t care less about semiotics and offers a degree of autonomy. Watching About Time we presume that Richard Curtis…

To tie-in with the release of Disney’s new live-action version of Beauty and Beast, the project’s Oscar winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran teamed up with students from Central Saint Martin’s college in London to reinterpret ensembles from the film. These are outfits designed in homage to Beauty and the Beast, taking specific elements here and there, a song, colour or concept and creating something entirely new. Whether these are fashion or art pieces is ultimately unclear – what stands out though is their reach beyond that of merely marketing a big movie. Just as an idea it would be fantastic to see more films promoting their costumes in this way.…

In 1935, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made cinema history with their most successful film partnership, Top Hat. However, it wasn’t Astaire’s headgear that got people talking; it was Rogers’ ostrich feather dress worn in the Oscar-nominated song ‘Cheek to Cheek’. The fact remains that this is quite possibly the most memorable, beautiful and romantic musical number ever captured on film, and Rogers’ dress contributes to this greatly. Whenever Astaire and Rogers dance, they are making love without undressing, without even kissing in the majority of their films; “they is angels” remarks unfairly condemned criminal Kofi as he fulfils his dying wish of watching the lovers perform ‘Cheek to Cheek’…

The first full trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger has bish bash boshed onto the internet. Look at how tiny Chris Evans as Steve Rogers is! There isn’t much new to see costume wise that has not already been revealed in papped set photographs. Mostly U.S. Army uniforms with overseas hats and other quiet 1940s period touches, such as khakis, 3pc suits, leather flight jackets and fire engine red lipstick on Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Costume design is a joint effort between Inception’s Jeffrey Kurland and twice Oscar nominated Anna B. Sheppard. It certainly looks exciting enough, but then again virtually all trailers for big budget comic book adaptations…

SPOILERS If you’ve heard anything about Phantom Thread (2017, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson), you are bound to uncover a multitude of thoughts on the astounding Academy Award winning costume work of Mark Bridges or the retirement role of Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, 1950s fashion house couturier. But one of the key components to Reynolds is missing from the discussion: Autism. Reynolds’ (Daniel Day-Lewis) daily dressing routine. Phantom Thread opens with Reynolds (Day-Lewis) getting dressed to formalities of the era. Polished shoes, ironed trousers, a fresh button-down shirt, with the addition of long magenta socks to introduce the notion of creativity, or perhaps particularities to the character. The scene…

Starring: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner Directed By: Brad Bird Ghost Protocol surges close to the complex spy shenanigans and intricate set pieces of the original film but comes up frustratingly short overall. Yet, even if this feels less a complete story and more an extended episode of television, it is still enjoyably daft fare with enough sci-fi tech and desirable clobber to keep you cooing until the credits. Even with Tom Cruise’s star draw as agent Ethan Hunt, the Mission: Impossible movies have always been about the team. Mainly because Ethan is not nearly as interesting a spy as James Bond or Jason Bourne, a point reflected by…

This is the most conspicuous outfit Grace Kelly as Frances Stevens wears in To Catch a Thief (1954), principally because there is little narrative justification for it being so elaborate. Her 18th century lamé gown, for example, is deliberately ostentatious. It is costume designer Edith Head’s show stopping finale, intended to throw all attention onto Frances as part of her and John Robie’s (Cary Grant) elaborate ruse. This exotic beach wear, however, is jarringly visible for no other reason than because Frances enjoys attention; far from ingratiating her to Robie, or us, she is presented as self-admiring and rather childish. Note how Frances pauses for a moment on entering the…