Director Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim was always bound to be a detailed visual feast of FX, sets and costume design. Nonetheless the real main players in this film wear no costumes at all, the kaiju (Japanese for ‘strange beast’) and the tower-block sized Jaeger robots (German for ‘hunter’) built to defend Earth from their attacks. As such it fell to costume designer Kate Hawley, fresh from The Hobbit’s design team, to emphasise the humanity of Pacific Rim’s smaller-scale, flesh and blood characters. Hawley’s job was made extra difficult because most of these characters are involved in the military Pan Pacific Defence Corps, and yet we arrive (intro excluded) at…

Costume designers face a quandary: keep contemporary set films up to date, but ensure that they do not appear hideously outmoded in the future. In short they need to create a look that is both fashionable and timeless. Not an easy task. With this in mind consider some predicted winter/fall trends in women’s and men’s wear. If you spot any in this season’s movies there is either a seriously forward-thinking costume designer at work, or one who is going to regret his/her choices in the future. The great Edith Head once got caught showcasing what she thought would be the latest fashions in a film then lived to regret it;…

Much was made of Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. Barrymore, as a Hollywood veteran, however, used many of her connections to help with the success of Whip It (2009). One of those connections was the well-respected Costume Designer, Catherine Marie Thomas. Known for her adept diversity, Thomas has been the designer on films as wide-ranging as Kill Bill (Vols. I & II) and The Prairie Home Companion. With Whip it, however, Thomas found herself in a position of freedom, as Roller Derby is traditionally known as having an “anything goes” approach to uniforms; from fishnets to feathers, nothing is off the table. With team names like The Sirens, The Holy Rollers,…

When news broke that the last installment of Harry Potter was to be released as two separate films, cynical groans echoed around the world. Plus it was going to be in 3D, but Warner Bros thankfully pulled the plug on the much-maligned post-shoot conversion to deliver it in glorious 2D instead – for Part 1 anyway. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 picks up at the very end of The Half Blood Prince with Harry still ravaged by guilt over the death of Professor Dumbledore. Ron and Hermione join Harry to find the last remaining Horcruxes in order to destroy Lord Voldermort’s (Ralph Fiennes) immortality. Meanwhile, Voldermort and…

Trailer two for Shutter Island in pin sharp HD has hit the net. Leonardo DiCaprio and co revisit 1950s fashions under the discerning eye of director Martin Scorsese. Watch the trailer HERE Based on Dennis Lehane’s 2003 novel of the same name and retaining its 1950s timeframe, Shutter Island follows two federal marshals, Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), as they investigate the disappearance of a mental patient from a creepy island facility in Massachusetts. Shutter Island promises to be a serious costume movie. Not just because of the enticing fifties setting, but also because Scorsese is someone who understands the important role clothes play in definition of…

Director: Michael Winterbottom Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba In 1952 Jim Thompson penned the book The Killer Inside Me from the perspective of a serial killer called Lou Ford. It was proclaimed as one of the best noir stories ever written. Shocking in its description of violence towards women, the book, and now the film, questions how such propensity is the fabric of human nature. After a stylistic title sequence, we arrive in the 1950s; Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is the deputy-sheriff of a small town in Texas. He is kind, generous but has slight arrogance about him. Lou has been assigned the task of coercing prostitute Joyce…

If you live anywhere near the Getty Center in Los Angeles, get yourself along to their ‘Dressing the Part: Historical Costume on Film’ event, not least because it features a panel chaired by former CDG president Deborah Nadoolman Landis. Commencing this Spring, two exhibitions are taking place at the Getty Museum relevant to period costume design in movies: ‘Fashion in the Middle Ages’ analyses how manuscript illuminators depicted dress from tradesmen to kings to pops, while ‘Paris: Life and Luxury’ examines the rich wealth and inventiveness of 18th century Parisian costume. The event gets underway with an introduction to medieval and 18th century fashion by art historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, followed…

No round up last week because we were a bit busy, so this week is MEGA JAMMED WITH COSTUME GOODNESS. Puttin’ on the Glitz We teamed up with Amber Jane Butchart and The British Library to talk jazz age fashion and dandy gangsters. Further coverage to follow… Costume Test Images 50 of them to be precise, from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to Star Wars, Batman, and beyond. Noah Mad good interview/article by Tyranny of Style with Noah’s Head Textile Artist Matt Reitsma. There is absolutely no way you can care about costume design and not read this. Business of Fashion Costume designers, fashion designers, studios, brands, and a business venture 100…

There is a man on Boardwalk Empire with even more sartorial presence than Steve Buscemi’s saffron silk gangster Nucky Thompson. Whereas Nucky may stop at red plaid suit and homburg, this man will brave a red topcoat with fur collar and leather buttons, red plaid suit and a bow-tie; he is the man to teach us all that colour and pattern are not only masculine, but the most masculine. He is Chalky White. Known to many for his career defining turn as Omar on The Wire, in Boardwalk Empire, Michael Kenneth Williams plays a gangster even shrewder and perhaps even more capable. Certainly he is better dressed. Williams’ prohibition era…

Win a pair of tickets to see Madonna’s already controversial costume fest W.E. showing on 23rd October courtesy of lovely Jameson, ‘Official Spirit of the BFI London Film Festival’. W.E. (directed and co-scripted by Madonna) tells a parallel story of two women, Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) and Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) separated by sixty years of history. Wally is obsessed by the idea of Wallis’ perfect relationship with Edward (James D’Arcy). Subsequent to Edward’s abdication of the British throne, Wally considers this the greatest sacrifice for love in history. However, as Wally delves deeper into the past she discovers that their life together was not the fairytale romance she thought.…