Clothes on film

Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) is the quintessential evil queen, right up there with The Queen from Snow White and the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Or is she..? Throughout Game of Thrones we have been given clues as to Cersei’s motivations and character, and by the end of Season 3 she has become, partially at least, a sympathetic character. While Cersei was not involved with the Walder-Frey-Marry-One-Of-My-Daughters plotline, which famously leads to the gruesome ‘Red Wedding’; that plot really drove home that point that in this world women are only worth how beautiful they are. Even Robb Stark, one of the so-called good guys, was horrified at the…

There is not man behind the mask; the mask is The Lone Ranger. Building character with the costume design of Pacific Rim. The costume evolution of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Analysis of Shawna Trpcic’s subtle costume signifiers with input from the designer herself. We chat to costume designer Gary Jones about his work on Oz the Great and Powerful. Lucinda Wright talks costume in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder in Angel Lane. World War Z neatly demonstrates the art of breaking down and distressing costume. The costume evolution of Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones. Man of Steel costume designer reveals fascinating insight about the film.…

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…

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…

Must admit, we kind of saw this one coming. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire costume designer Trish Summerville has teamed up with online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter to produce 16 ready-to-wear outfits, leather goods and jewellery tied into the film. These ensembles will available exclusively at Net-a-Porter while being simultaneously promoted through Lionsgate’s Capital Couture website. Summerville, recently honoured as Costume Designer of the Year at the 10th Annual Style Awards, commented she’s “extremely proud of the designs that we created for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and there’s no partner more appropriate for Capitol Couture than the world’s most cutting-edge luxury retailer”. If anyone can make such a collection work,…

The following is an expanded article Clothes on Film editor Christopher Laverty wrote for men’s style resource MR PORTER analysing Michael Caine’s suits in The Italian Job. This post covers all the costumes he wore during the film. If The Italian Job (1969) needs any introduction at all it might be possible you’ve been in a coma for the past 40 years. It’s so well known and so well loved that were it not for the fact that no-one has really delved into the sartorial details of Michael Caine’s suits there would be nothing left to talk about. As it happens we have spent time studying and researching The Italian……

Lots of exciting costume stories this week. Pick of the week’s movie and television costume design stories. To celebrate the release of Oz the Great and Powerful, here is a round up of the best fantasy costume posts at Clothes on Film. The Costume Designers Guild Award nominations right some wrongs and ignore quite a few others. Clothes on Film on the costume design for HBO’s immense fantasy series, Game of Thrones.

BAMF A well written and comprehensive site with a growing list of gents film/TV costume posts in the ‘get the look’ format. Like this a lot. Costume design, JK Rowling’s new Harry Potter movie, and the wizarding fashions of 1920s New York Hello Tailor gets lost in the world of world of Hogwarts costume. And in Part 2… She sets her sights on the flapper effect. Fashion Have no doubt; costume designers have a big impact on fashion. The Great Gatsby Lisa Hix for Collector’s Weekly finds more to say on The Great Gatsby. Her starting point? Boobs. Rush Gilt talk to Julian Day about his period costume work on……

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……

If there is a more joyous film this year, we haven’t seen it. Disney has just released a new international trailer for Brave. Delightful, it is. Bonnie and Clyde is a great example of how the simple addition of a hat can say a lot about a character. The most exquisite fashion promo ever made. On the eve of Boardwalk Empire: Season 2 commencing, we had a chat with the show’s costume designers John Dunn and Lisa Padovani. The arrival of Scarface on Blu-ray grants ideal opportunity to indulge in Patricia Norris’ exemplary, disco couture costumes. In Malèna, Monica Bellucci plays an impossible vision of beauty; a woman so striking…