In honour of The Times’ film critic Kevin Maher’s list of iconic movie rebels, we take a look at what it truly takes to make a tough guy in cinema. What constitutes a tough guy, as in ‘man’, on film is usually a traditional interpretation of masculinity. There is always room for the sensitive hero in a sweater and slacks, but for those who watch movies as ingrained wish fulfilment, the sexy and sweaty man’s man needs suitable attire to reflect his personality. But it is not just about the garments themselves. A jacket is a jacket, but a leather jacket is a symbol. A wax jacket on the other…

Le full trailer for Luc Besson’s latest film as director, Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec) has arrived on the net. It is the early 20th Century and ladies wore massive hats. Watch le trailer with subtitles HERE Based on the dual French/Belgian comics of writer/illustrator Jacques Tardi, the movie, like the books, follows the escapades of heroine Adèle Blanc-Sec, an eligible investigative journalist who battles crime and mythical monsters while all the time endeavouring to ‘act like a lady’. The stories first appeared in 1976 and are set in the 1910s and later on around 1918, after Blanc-Sec is cryogenically frozen for the duration…

Author Caroline Young has just released a fascinating new book entitled Hitchcock’s Heroines (published by Insight Editions). It celebrates and studies the women in Hitchcock movies; their influence, semblance and iconography. What’s more, Young also examines the role costume design plays with these women, both the characters and the actresses who played them, and how they can be interpreted as far more than just ‘icy blondes’. Here we have an extract of the book exclusively for Clothes on Film: Kim Novak’s grey suit the colour of San Francisco fog in Vertigo, Grace Kelly as the too-perfect woman in Rear Window, and Janet Leigh’s black and white sets of underwear to……

Watch the trailer HERE The latest trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender has arrived in all its CG glory. Sumptuous looking costume design by Judianna Makovsky. The film is a live-action version of Nickelodeon’s TV animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, about a fantastical world where ‘benders’ (steady) can control the elements Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. A deceptively young man Aang (played by Noah Ringer) must restore peace after the ‘Fire Nation’ openly declares war. Aang is ‘The Avatar’, basically a physical manifestation of the four classical elements, though at the start of the story he can only manipulate Air. Judianna Makovsky has been costume designer on…

A real legend of the industry, Greek born costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge, has died aged 88 years old. Designing for both stage and screen since 1950s, Aldredge was perhaps best known for her work during seventies era Hollywood on films such as Three Days Of The Condor (1975), Network (1976) and Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). She collaborated with Ralph Lauren for The Great Gatsby in 1974, though ostensibly Lauren just provided shirts and some suiting, in which she sparked a high street fashion revival for the delicate, waistless shifts worn by Mia Farrow’s character Daisy. The costumes were made in less than two weeks – an astonishing achievement.…

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,……

We revisit sci-fi classic Inception a decade after its release with MVP, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland. Finally we have a trailer for Tom Hardy’s Capone and it looks jim-jam tastic. Amongst staggering aural and visual assault, perhaps one of the quietest aspects of Dunkirk (2017, directed by Christopher Nolan) are its costumes – and this is to its credit. Dunkirk is the type of film that requires you to engage quickly with everything you see on screen. Jeffrey Kurland’s costume design is masterful in this regard. A sea of subtly differentiated green and brown with the pop of naval uniforms and briefly glimpsed civilian wear. This is 1940 at its…

Biba did things differently. It was a shopping revolution. If a Biba sales assistant approached a potential customer browsing and asked “Can I help you?” they would have been fired on the spot. Biba was unique. Topshop is not Biba. Beyond Biba: A Portrait of Barbara Hulanicki (directed by Louis Price, 2009) is exactly that; a relatively short (56 minutes) but detailed look at a woman defined by the brand she created. This is a patient story, surprising in parts but mostly just enlightening. There is much to learn from this film, although it never feels as though you are being lectured. The innovative fashion and lifestyle brand Biba was…

The following is an abridged interview with Deborah Nadoolman Landis by Clothes on Film editor Chris Laverty for Moviescope magazine. Read the full version in issue 31 available now. “It’s like we’ve been in rehearsals and now we’re going to open on Broadway. Wait till you see it – you’re gonna flip out!” Prof. Deborah Nadoolman Landis is the closest costume design has to living royalty. She has costumed countless films including Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Blues Brothers and Coming to America (for which she was Academy Award nominated), stood as two-term president for The Costume Designers Guild, is a senior lecturer for UCLA (University of California, Los…

Paddy Considine plays The Guardian journalist Simon Ross in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). And thanks to costume designer Shay Cunliffe, he wears a Belstaff man bag. Nothing unusual about him carrying a bag, he is a reporter after all. Except that, somehow, there is; even in this day and age when gender blending style has never been more prominent, it still looks ‘wrong’. But why? Male journalists tend to fall into two categories: those that shave on a regular basis, and those that don’t. Ross is the former, a squeaky clean type in inoffensive brown fine stripe moleskin jacket, white and blue stripe shirt and dark rinse jeans. The man…