Vanity Fair: “When you think of Billie Holiday, you automatically think of the gardenias in the hair,” says Paolo Nieddu, the Emmy-nominated costume designer (Empire) who re-created the jazz singer’s look for the Lee Daniels-directed biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday. While filming, however, gardenias were actually not in season—so Nieddu had to get creative. “We used some synthetic ones made from silk. In research, we found that Billie did wear orchids in her hair. So we did some fresh orchids too.”
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Costumes really do so much for the tone and world of a piece whether theater, television, or movies. Through a costume, you can show so much about a character's personality, their motives, and the world they exist in. Reading this article was really fascinating because it talked about the many different approaches of different designers. While there were many similarities between their work each person has their own unique way of creating beautiful costumes. I love hearing about all of the different places they draw inspiration from, everything from historical photographs and references to the environment the piece takes place. So many tiny little details are included in each piece and I think that it demonstrates the love and care costume designers put into their work. It is truly a labor of love to go from all of the research to design to cutting sewing and dropping to achieve a beautiful final product. Good costumes can truly transform a piece.
Costume design can be such a painstaking and exacting art, but at the same time there's always more room than expected to make creative decisions and to twist expectations. Emma is one of the most aesthetically pleasing movies I've seen in a long time, and the candy-colored world added so much life, vitality, and vibrance to what was otherwise a rather boring story. With the character of Emma, especially, there was a lot of room to push the envelope and go for the most vibrant, new, and extravagant version of the time period that people hold in their heads. I also thought it was really interesting how Emma and The Personal History of David Copperfield both opted to use natural dyes that would have been period-accurate, instead of trying to mimic the effect with modern synthetic dyes. I'm sure it could be done, but it was another step of commitment to the period made by the designers, and it paid off.
I think that costumes are something often taken for granted. I feel that it is easy to overlook because we – as the audience – expect them to be outstanding. Because we already have this expectation, we are prone to forget to look for the details of why they can contribute so much to the story and its characters. Specifically, when it comes to period pieces – like the ones discussed in the article – involve great research in addition to avoiding making a copy of pre-existing pieces. The process is long, and even when the preliminary designs are done there are still countless revisions left that have to do with re-designs, adjusting for budget, location, among many other factors. I thought it was very illuminating reading about how different designers have different methodologies both in general and depending on each project. I think it’s a nice reminder to have that you can get to the same place through different methods.
I watched the 2020 adaptation of Emma for the very first time last month and I loved every second of it so much. I gave my friend live updates as I watched it, I would not shut up about the soundtrack. The costumes, of course, were so beautiful and so pleasant to view. I found it very impressive how Alexandra Byrne, the costume designer for Emma, sourced period-appropriate dyes to color Emma's wardrobe. I don't know how different it would have felt or looked if they had just dyed the costumes with modern methods, but it makes me giddy in my heart that they went to such lengths to adhere to the time period. I think Emma is a fantastic movie on which to commit to the time period, because Emma's family, the Woodhouses, are wealthy and therefore very much at the forefront of fashion and trends, which means a lot more opportunity for the costume department to design to their hearts' content.
what a great article! This article pretty much encapsulated all of the front runners for Best Costume Design at the Oscars this year. It was interesting to hear how different designers approached these period pieces. Most you could tell were anchored in historical research. Another thing that I think most people may not honk of is how many of them spoke about the transformation of a character. Many times the costumes will give us a glimpse into a characters arch or lack there of. This can be subtle things like the color palette in Emma or big shifts like in The United States VS Billie Holliday. I think all of these designers were very successful in bringing and idea to screen that has depth. There are certain levels an audience will be on. Some will catch the small specific details and some will just get a general feeling, it’s important for a designer to think about both of these things. And especially for film, and a period piece for that matter, every tiniest detail is of extreme importance. The design must be executed with laser precision.- Evan Riley
I personally do not know Billie Holiday’s music off the top of my head but maybe if I heard one of her songs I would know it. Her style, however, is recognizable to me. Although I did not make the connection that the iconic look was hers, I did see the flowers in the hair and get a familiar sense with it. It shocks me to learn how many different famous movie wardrobe departments use clothes from Prada. It made sense to me with The Devil Wears Prada article a little bit ago, but seeing that The United States v.s Billie Holiday does too is surprising too. As for the Civil War costumes, on my own I most likely would not be able to tell if they were exactly period accurate without doing some research first but they seem to really fit the scenes based on the images shown.
Costume design is such an integral part of theatre. Each piece is so meticulously drawn, crafted, and styled on the actors. It is crazy to think about the amount of work that goes into costume design and production, and it is a skillset I really admire about our costume designers here at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. I think that costuming and everything it entails is so incredibly purposeful in nature, and it makes me respect costume designers a whole lot. I just read an article about the costume design for Harley Quinn in Birds Of Prey, which has me really thinking about how important it is for costumes to set the tone for a show or film. Props to all of these designers, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for design in the television and film world after the pandemic ends and we can resume theatre as usual.
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