Clothes on film

Director Peter Jackson’s big budget King Kong (2005) remake is set in 1933 (same as the original). This is slap bang in the middle of America’s Great depression, tasking costume designer Terry Ryan with creating looks that replicate the obvious poverty of the time plus the go-for-broke ensembles adopted by many people for glamorous night time events and parties. Ryan costumed King Kong heroine Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) in two distinct categories: New York attire and film within a film outfits, i.e. those worn on board the ship to Skull Island and while on the island itself. Ann’s New York look is largely in keeping with the era; although with…

As Mad Men’s unflappable account man Roger Sterling, John Slattery tended to wear a fairly standardised costume of light grey three piece suit and white shirt; right up until the season 2 episode ‘Three Sundays’, when he donned a sharp double breasted suit for the first time. Showing the main Sterling Cooper line-up away from their desks and enjoying (in some cases) a relaxing Sunday, this episode culminates in a last act, last minute pitch for American Airlines. Evidently landing such a prominent account would elevate ‘Sterling Coo’ into the big leagues so everyone has to be ready and raring to go, or as Lane Price (Jared Harris) would put…

The final trailer for The Rhythm Section features more costume changes than a Lady Gaga concert. Lord Christopher Laverty Comments Off on The Rhythm Section Trailer: An Assassin’s Lookbook 11 Feb ’14 13 Jul ’10 28 Jul ’17

Author Matt Zoller Seitz has published a continuation of his superb book The Wes Anderson Collection (2013), entitled (deep breath) The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel. The former is a detailed look at Anderson’s output so far, influences, meaning and interpretation of his work; the latter covers exclusively Anderson’s latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel. This is far more than a bolted on sequel, however, and one of the reasons we know this is because Clothes on Film editor Christopher Laverty was asked to contribute a chapter. More than that, it has recently joined The New York Times bestseller list. A pretty, candy-coloured slab of hardback, Seitz’s follow up…

The leggy lure of Bombshell. A new trailer for Daniel Radcliffe’s Guns Akimbo has arrived and it’s hilarious. The costume style evolution of Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone (1984). The scruffy gumshoe style of Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (1987). With very special trousers. A brief glimpse at the costume world Mark Bridges created for Joker. Examining the shirt collars of all the gentleman in 1941 noir classic, The Maltese Falcon. A brief video dip into the costume design of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Actually that title is a tad misleading – it’s all the clothes worn by Lee Marvin as kick-ass-tough-guy-on-a-mission Walker in Point Blank. This…

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……

Recently underway on Sky Atlantic, This is Jinsy is one of those comedy shows set in a surreal world of madness that you either get or you don’t. Frequently hilarious and always interesting, from a costume point of view this is retro fancy dress, deliberately mismatched and performance orientated. Yet everything in Jinsy makes sense within its own world. The island of Jinsy is populated (791 residents) by all manner of weird and wonderful people. The locale has been likened to The Wicker Man’s Summerisle but is spiritually closer to the Village from Patrick McGoohan’s sixties TV series, The Prisoner. Everyone in Jinsy seems trapped there but somehow content. Episode…

Doctor Who, the quirky British sci-fi television series about a time travelling alien and his friends, premiered in 1963. Since then there have been twelve Doctors (and a War Doctor), each with their own unique looks to match their unique and often eccentric personalities. With the debut of the Twelfth Doctor fast approaching, this post takes a look back at the three Doctors we’ve seen so far (not including the War Doctor) on Doctor Who since it was rebooted in 2005 (or New Who, as some like to call it) and guesses at what we can expect from Doctor number twelve. Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor Who. Costume designer:…

Sharen Davis is already a well established costume designer. Indeed she was Academy Award nominated for Dreamgirls (2006) and recently lauded for her work on The Help (2011). However chances are after Looper and her forthcoming contribution to Quentin Tarantino’s western Django Unchained, Ms. Davis will enter costuming A-List. Looper especially is a departure for her in terms of genre, a sci-fi thriller set in the near future, and yet typically she returned to the past for inspiration. Talking exclusively to Clothes on Film, Sharen Davis explains her unique retro vision for Looper (featuring original costume sketches): “I started my research on the script viewing films from the 1960s that…

Doctor Who, the quirky British sci-fi television series about a time travelling alien and his friends, premiered in 1963. Since then there have been twelve Doctors (and a War Doctor), each with their own unique looks to match their unique and often eccentric personalities. With the debut of the Twelfth Doctor fast approaching, this post takes a look back at the three Doctors we’ve seen so far (not including the War Doctor) on Doctor Who since it was rebooted in 2005 (or New Who, as some like to call it) and guesses at what we can expect from Doctor number twelve. The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) arrived on our screens……