Directed By: Darren Aronofsky Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel Darren Aronofsky’s latest work is perhaps the ultimate mediation on the art/act of performance. The tale of the female ballet dancer and her strive for perfection is detailed here in a manner unlike any other seen upon the big screen, with the metaphorical “journey into hell” that the protagonist takes; a frenzied and visceral portrayal of an industry rarely exposed to the outside from within its notoriously cliquey confines. Black Swan tells the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a young ballerina who is a rising star in the New York City Ballet. Nina is an only child, her protective…

There have been two big costume reveals in the last few days, so it hardly seems surprising that Sherlock Holmes 2 (working title) should round out the week with its first official image courtesy of LA Times. What can we earn from this shot then? Not a lot, obviously. What we know of the plot, that this sequel is set in 1891, one year after the original film, that Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) is pursuing possibly history’s first supervillain Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) and sidekick Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) is settling down with Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly), is as vague as it is enticing. Moreover with Stephen Fry…

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page Directed By: Christopher Nolan Not everyone is going to like Inception. Not everyone likes, say, Fight Club, or Inglourious Basterds. Mainly because they went in expecting one thing and came out with something entirely different. And this is Inception in a nutshell. Slick, engaging, tense, yet maybe nothing at all like you expected. The screenplay by director Christopher Nolan, apparently decades in the making and originally a horror story, is constructed as his own personal maze in which to lose viewers. The meat of the film, the heist or ‘Inception’, incorporates several plots working concurrently towards a single narrative. Shooting at exotic locales…

Throughout summer it has been difficult to ignore the recent Chinoiserie trend in stores and magazines, kick-started by the opulent Louis Vuitton show in Paris and merged effortlessly into autumn by Paul Smith. Cheongsam collars and qipao slits aside, this new-found interest in the East may have been partly triggered by China’s growing appetite for high-end goods, which despite recent economic setbacks, has left Western luxury brands competing for a share of this very sizable market. This obsession with the ‘Orient’ has also seen a proliferation of Asian models on catwalks and throughout editorial spreads, which has courted controversy for some publications and raises all manner of questions regarding ethnicity…

RYAN GOSLING as Jacob in Warner Bros. Pictures? comedy ?CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.? a Warner Bros. Pictures release. © 2012, Lord Christopher Laverty.

We interrupt normal programming to ask a favour: Please vote for Clothes on Film as Best Male Blog in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2011. This is a big deal for Clothes on Film; it is recognition for all those who work hard on the site creating original, focused content about costume in cinema (NB: the reason we are in the Best Male Blog category is because that’s where we were nominated). To vote all you have to do is enter your email address at the link below (you won’t get spammed), find Male Blog and then click Clothes on Film. Deadline for votes is 30th September. VOTE FOR CLOTHES ON…

Director Martin Scorsese once again teams up with regular collaborator Sandy Powell for The Wolf of Wall Street. This first trailer lays the costume ground rules: expensive bad taste and lots of it. The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the memoirs of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), tracing his involvement in a large securities fraud case and refusal to cooperate with the FBI. This all occurred during the 1990s boom and if the trailer is anything to go by, predominantly at the beginning of that stylistically redundant decade. Oscar winning costume designer Sandy Powell has gone to town with what looks to be her…

Depending on how clean you want to go into Man of Steel, you could skip watching this 13 minute featurette altogether. Of course we had to watch it because the re-designed Superman suit is mentioned. Take a look if you are curious, although with under two weeks to go until the film is released it is not long to go cold turkey. Michael Wilkinson and James Acheson are costume designers for Man of Steel. We still do not know how their responsibilities were divvied up. Did they work as a team? Did one take civilian wear and one hero/alien costumes? No idea until we interview them (HINT HINT). Only Michael…

The first trailer for Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. This looks to take the story in a fun direction with newscaster Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and friends having disappeared as legend since 1970s San Diego now reassembled in 1980s New York. Before you can say ‘curly perm’ and ‘bouclé’, Ron is sporting a graph paper check suit and fur trim leather coat. Costume designer Susan Matheson (Step Brothers, Jack Reacher) has pulled out all the stops here. With a returning ensemble that includes Brick (Steve Carrell), Brian (Paul Rudd) and Champ (David Koechner) initially more than a little seventies dated (especially Brian who is rocking the badmutha undercover cop vibe),…

Despite having watched Catfish at the 24th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF), you will find no review of it here. There is not much to be said about Catfish without spoiling it for those who have not yet seen it – though there is a little. This is not a ‘twist’ movie; the narrative plays out pretty much as you would expect. Instead it is a deftly clever commentary on the nature of identity and how it defines our role in society. Catfish is about Nev Schulman, a New York based professional photographer in his mid-twenties, who corresponds with eight-year old artist prodigy Abby Pierce through Facebook after she paints…