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Long and Lean: The Silhouette of High Rise
Or when your costumes look like a building. Odile Dicks-Mireaux’s designs for High Rise (2016) are far more than that. But for a film set in such a heavily stylised world, especially one created by sci-fi author J.G. Ballard, homogeny is everything. In fact homogeny is terrifying. Everything is reflected in the aesthetic. The building towers, Tom Hiddleston’s trouser legs tower, and Luke Evans towers over everyone. Director Ben Wheatley has claimed that he did not want High Rise to look like a ‘greatest hits of the seventies‘, but really that’s exactly what he’s got, certainly in terms of costume design – and that’s okay. It might not be the…
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Sons of Anarchy: Identity and the Outlaw: Women of SAMCRO
Part two of our essay looking at sartorial identity in Sons of Anarchy, featuring exclusive insight from series costume designer Kelli Jones. Catch up with part 1 HERE. The women of SAMCRO include porn stars and pole dancers, but the club matriarch is Gemma played by Katey Sagal, formerly known as Peg Bundy in Married with Children. Gemma is the Queen of this world so her look is regal rock chick, “to make her look badass without looking like a slut. This sexy mama bitch doesn’t need to TRY” costume designer Kelli Jones says. With her background in music (she has performed with the likes of Bette Midler, Gene Simmons…
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Sons of Anarchy: Costume Identity and the Outlaw
Sons of Anarchy portrays the fictionalised world of an outlaw motorcycle club; although the plots are dramatic in the extreme, many of the details are firmly based in realism, including the costuming. Series creator Kurt Sutter has described it as pure soap opera, but this family drama has earned the tag of “Hamlet on Motorcycles”. It has been embraced by pop culture and by the biker community, and spurred an upsurge in sales of Harley Davidsons (and a $25k SOA branded bike). Motorcycle club culture took off after WW2, when returning veterans with experience of riding bikes on service, and often undiagnosed post-traumatic stress, took to the lifestyle looking for…
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Status and Signifiers: Costume in There Will Be Blood
Costume designer Mark Bridges described There Will Be Blood (2007) as his most challenging film, referring to the difficulties he faced in transporting costumes to the remote location in West Texas, after director Paul Thomas Anderson called for a new concept three days before a re-shoot. However these challenges seem to channel the themes of the film itself: hardship, isolation, and the determination to overcome any obstacle to fulfil a goal. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a turn-of-the-century prospector, who receives a tip about a giant oil deposit under a family farm in California. The family includes Eli Sunday, a zealous preacher and faith healer who wants the money from…
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Hanging by a Thread: Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine
Suzy Benzinger, the costume designer of Blue Jasmine, chose iconic brands like Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Missoni to serve as visual shorthand of what the modern-day wealthy socialite wears, but it is the white Chanel jacket that follows Jasmine from the beginning of the movie to the end which tells its own tale of what is happening to its owner. When we first see Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) she is flying first-class from New York to San Francisco to see her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). On the flight she dazzles a fellow passenger with the story of how she met her wealthy businessman husband Hal (Alec Baldwin). Or so she thinks.…
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The Muppets Most Wanted: Set and Costume Visit
‘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…
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Combat and the Croupier: The Costume World of Pacific Rim
Building character with the costume design of Pacific Rim.
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Alan Partridge Movie Trailer Hits: He’s Wearing a Varsity
Teaser trailer for Alpha Papa aka Alan Partridge the movie arrives. He may dress hideously but costume design is vital for the character.
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Costume Clues Reveal All in The Cabin in the Woods
Costume in The Cabin in the Woods is not grand, but it is very clever. All the teenage characters subtly evolve from one horror stereotype to another.
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Tom Hardy in Lawless: The Knitwear Anti-Hero
Tom Hardy heralds dawning of the knitwear anti-hero. Margot Wilson discusses her use of the cardigan for Lawless.
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The Secret Sharer: Abbie Cornish & Andrea Riseborough in W.E.
The glamorous look of the mid-1930s threads its way through dual love stories in W.E.
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First Official Gatsby Pics Bring the Money
Warner Bros. have released two images from The Great Gatsby. Not much to see, but it is difficult not to be drawn in by the promise of costume luxury.
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