The best costumes in film of all time part three

Continuing on from part one and part two:

Eleven: Marie Antoinette

I’ve spoken about Marie Antoinette before, it is an absolutely stunning film by one of my favourite directors Sofia Coppola and whenever I think about the best costumes in film this immediately pops into my head. The queen of France, Marie Antoinette is young, fresh and a lover of fashion (especially shoes) and enjoys indulging in cake and champagne. Costume designer Milena Canonero won Best Costume Design for the film at the Oscars in 2006 due to the pastel coloured dresses including duck egg, mint green, baby pink and peach which are all currently fashion trends this spring 2012. The lace collars, the wide exaggerated under skirts and corsets are a depiction of what the queen did wear during the late 1700s but with a romantic, edgier feel which has a traditional notion with a little modern-day cult thrown in.

Twelve: Inception

The wonderfully creative, mind-boggling Inception messed with our heads in the summer of 2010 and although the costumes are impressive for all of the characters (I can’t pin point just ONE great costume moment!), the costumes play a particularly important role in the way that the film is being told. Costume designer Jeffrey Kurland had to work extra close with director Christopher Nolan to make sure the clothes are accurate throughout the dreams and also the reality but while speaking to Clothes on Film he might have given away the ending. All of the clothes were custom-made and each character had their own individual style and colour palette as shown in the above image therefore everything was made specifically for each of them. Due to the architecture professions in the film Jeffrey chose sharp lines such as peaked lapels, windowpane patterns, and plaids.

Thirteen: Sex and the City

For the first Sex and the City film Carrie had more than 80 outfits to wear but this is by far the most memorable. The moment when Carrie receives a large dress box and a note from the woman herself, Vivienne Westwood stating that the dress belonged to Carrie, after seeing her wearing it during a Vogue photo shoot. It would only happen to her wouldn’t it? The dress is a little OTT, I remember seeing it and thinking it was lovely but Carrie is the only one that could pull it off even though I wasn’t a fan of her ‘something blue’ feather a.k.a. bird head-piece, yet it did give the outfit edge which you would expect from her. The beautiful fabric is luminous – the champagne silk is the perfect colour for Carrie whilst the fabric itself is very classic. The dress has a silk bustier with a built-in corset, a puff under-skirt which is also silk but a slightly off-white colour with an asymmetric hem. Sarah Jessica Parker and the Sex and the City films are sure great for marketing, particularly as shopping platform Net A Porter sold out of the Vivienne Westwood Carrie dress’ on their website for $10,000 a pop despite it only being a knee-length version (the floor length version is $15,7000 which you have to order from the lady herself, Vivienne and wait six months for it to be produced.) Were you inspired by this dress for your wedding?

Fourteen: Alice in Wonderland

I love anything Tim Burton and there’s no deny in the fact that his films excel in everything – production design, script, visual effects and of course, costume design. With his eccentric mind alongside his long-standing costume designer Colleen Atwood who has worked on many of Burton’s films (Edward Scissorhands, Planet of the Apes, Sweeney Todd, Sleepy Hollow and upcoming film Dark Shadows) the costumes ooze originality. Alice in Wonderland is no exception. There are wonderful costumes throughout, but of course Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter stands out to most. Colleen explored the world of hat makers in London from the Edwardian era which inspired her more than the previous illustrations of the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll’s book. Depp being a chameleon by adapting to all of his costumes so well that they don’t even appear as costume was dressed in very playful and eccentric clothes to portray his mad personality, yet not distracting away from his character and personal story within the film. The jacket is made from silk which is burnt by the break-down department to give it age, he also has a bow tie which reacts with his mood which rises up when he is happy and droops down when he is sad. He has a pair of scissors attached to the a jacket with scrap pieces of ribbon which he can use to create a hat at the last-minute, there is embroidery on his trousers which is an embroidered ‘doodle’ which he does while waiting for Alice to come to tea and he also has mismatch socks as he lost the pairs.

Fifteen: The Help

Being a huge fan of 1960s clothing, or ‘Mad Men era’ shall I say, I absolutely adored The Help. Costume designer Sharen Davis transformed the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett into costume heaven with sort-after dresses upon dresses of the ice-cream shade kind. The bold floral prints and pastel shades are so visually appealing and beautifully hand-made that it’s very clear how much effort she put into transforming sheets of fabric into wonderful shift dresses, pencil skirts and ultra-feminine blouses. Kathryn created 50 costumes from scratch using vintage fabrics with the rest being sourced from vintage and costume shops, the latter being difficult due to the rural location which meant cast members having to fly to LA for their fittings. Taking inspiration from old Vogue magazines, 1960s high-street fashion catalogues and Marilyn Monroe, the overall look is any fashion-lover’s dream and an expensive one at that – she spent $15,000 on just the period accessories which included leather structured handbags, pearl choker necklaces and cat-eye sunglasses.