The Verge: There’s a common theme among the films nominated for Best Costume Design at this year’s Academy Awards. You won’t find any superhero costumes or exotic space opera designs. Instead, movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Darkest Hour, and The Shape of Water focus on traditional period designs, using the art of costuming to establish their highly specific worlds and offer insight into their characters.
4 comments:
I really like it when pieces like this have the ability to combine design so integrally into the storyline of the show. It gives the costumes in this movie so much more weight, because in a sense this movie is about the costume design and nothing else. Being able to adequately represent that and stay true to the more traditional means of fabricating the costumes most definitely deserves a nomination. The nuance and the detail that appropriate costume or light or set design is truly incredible. These processes have so much to offer a piece and really can make or break it, even though they are usually viewed secondarily or as a result of the acting, directing, etc. It makes me happy to see it in the forefront of a show where the show could not be what it is without the costumes. I cannot wait to see if The Phantom Thread wins or not!
This mentality expressed by Mark Bridges in the article about how he design for this project is especially poignant for me - the idea that in designing for this movie, since it was SO integrally about the design of the costumes themselves, he was in a way designing the character and had to deeply and intrinsically understand the character in order to design not as Mark Bridges but AS Reynolds Woodcock. Costume design for me is exactly that, becoming the character and dressing them as themselves rather than as a designer carefully creating clothes to put on another person. The communication of someone's inner thoughts can be seen in what they choose to wear and not to wear, what thought they put into their appearance, the colors and fabrics and shapes they prefer. This movie examines this and sounds like a fascinating piece of film that I'm adding to my 'to watch over the summer' list.
I really enjoyed reading this article because it gave me a much better look into Paul Thomas Anderson's film "Phantom Thread". I have been a little hesitant to see this movie based only on plot and the things that I have heard from other people about the story that the movie tells, but the thing that did interest me was the costume design of the movie. A movie about fashion is of course going to be under careful watch with regards to the costume design, and everything I saw in the trailer for the film made the movie seem very beautifully designed. The interview with costume designer Mark Bridges gave an interesting look into his process for creating clothes for the film. The way that Bridges looked at the two main character's story arcs and put those story lines into not only their own costumes but also the fictional fashion line that the movie shows is an important choice to make. This article definitely made me want to see Phantom Thread more, and I hope I get to do so soon!
I've yet to see "Phantom Thread", but it is definitely on my list to do so. The fact that the film used actual high fashion drapers and cutters show that they really committed to the realism of the film. The article reads: "Luckily, we had a cutter [the artist that translates the designer’s sketches into patterns, and then garments] who came from a couture background. Her mother worked in couture. She was an amazing cutter, and much to her excitement — as well as exhaustion level — she really tried to do it for us, and deliver us a truly couture garment every time. I have pictures of six people sewing on one train at the same time because [the dress was needed] the next day. We were making garments all the way through the shoot, right to the very end. It was a constant state of creating and fitting and finishing." Which is incredible to say the least.
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