Clothes on film

Les Misérables is drenched in costume symbolism, specifically revolutionary red, white and blue. Subtle was never its intention. Speaking exclusively to Clothes on Film, Le Divorce costume designer Carol Ramsey explains how a Hermès Kelly can be elevated from status symbol to character.

Costume designer for The Hangover, Louise Mingenbach, has answered more questions about who wears what in the movie.

Janty Yates, costume designer for director Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sci-fi prequel Prometheus, is multi-award nominated and an Oscar winner for Gladiator (2000). She almost always collaborates with Scott (they have made seven pictures together and counting), but has an impressive catalogue of stand-alone work including Jude (1996), Plunkett & Macleane (1999) and Miami Vice (2006). Clothes on Film caught up with Ms. Yates for an exclusive chat about the space suits and fatigues in Prometheus, which she describes as containing some of her proudest work since Gladiator. SPOILER WARNING: We suggest only reading this after you have seen the film. Clothes on Film, Chris: What was the costume brief for…

‘Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theatres in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine—the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog—and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon, and Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard.‘ That is the boilerplate pitch for The Muppets Most Wanted. Verbatim. If you think that sounds like…

For a big budget movie about a lone astronaut who gets stranded on Mars, the spacesuits in The Martian are surprisingly sober in terms of design. There is an attempt here to make everything seem as plausible as possible, costume design especially. Director Ridley Scott’s regular costumer Janty Yates has created possibly the sexiest spacesuits ever seen on screen, and what’s more they are functional. To paraphrase a line in the film, she had to “science the shit out of them”. Yates collaborated with NASA looking specifically at their Z1 and Z2 prototypes to create an EVA (‘Extravehicular Activity’ – any time the crew must go outside) suit and surface……

Welsh born costume designer Lindy Hemming started her career in the theatre, conceding she hardly watched any movies at all until moving to London. Yet several decades later Ms. Hemming has designed for such hugely successful features as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and won an Academy Award for Topsy Turvy (1999). Of course her tenure with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond (and one for Daniel Craig) is well known, much like her role as Christopher Nolan’s regular costumer for his Dark Knight trilogy. Having long been intrigued by Nolan’s unique vision, particularly after Memento (2000), Ms. Hemming was thrilled to…

Could Django Unchained be the first Quentin Tarantino movie to win a Costume Design Oscar? Lord Christopher Laverty 1 Comment 16 Jul ’13 20 Dec ’12 20 Jun ’09

Does costume design exist in animated film? Simulation supervisor for Brave, Claudia Chung, discusses its creation, processes and role in the finished movie. From The Observer, Bill Nighy lists five things he knows about style. Just days behind our first glimpse at Prince of Persia, we have a teaser trailer for Clash of the Titans. It’s certainly loud.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FROM THE OUTSET All the main characters in director/screenwriter Shane Black’s brave and exciting Iron Man 3 wear a suit. By his own admission, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is “cocooned” in his. He retreats inside the Iron Man suit, now up to an almost unfathomably expensive Mark 42, because it is the only place he feels safe. Those around Stark, be they on the side of right or wrong, wear their own suit. The suit hides their true self and it is only by removing this disguise that they can reveal it. Iron Man 3 mocks the notion of re-invention; Stark can build all the iron…

The evolving costumes worn by Sandra Dee in classic sixties gender comedy A Man Answers. Contributor Comments Off on Sandra Dee in If A Man Answers: A Salmon Run Up Beacon Hill 2 Sep ’19 14 Aug ’13 11 Feb ’11