www.yahoo.com: Growing up in New Zealand, Kirsty Cameron was sewing clothes for her dolls by age eight and cleverly crafting a gold PVC jacket for the school disco by her teens. Little did she realize that her love for sewing would one day see her creating costumes for stars like Kirsten Dunst while running the wardrobe department on a film with 12 Oscar nominations. Of course we're talking 2021's powerhouse period piece The Power of the Dog.
3 comments:
This is such a specific time period and place and I think that Cameron did a great job tackling all of the aspects of it. I actually haven’t heard of this film even though it has won some awards already, but it seems very interesting. Texture I think is one of the most important parts of costuming to me so it was great to see Cameron center this as part of the design. Fabric and the texture can tell such a great story, especially in films because you get shorts that are really up close and personal with costume pieces. In general I also just love reading film costuming articles and just see how different but also similar it is from doing costumes in theatre. In the aspect that I mentioned, film costume texture is far more important because in theatre it is much rarer to see a costume up close. Also just the ability to change and show a more full arch in the costumes is so much more possible in film which is very appealing.
The title of this article is really intriguing to me. The words “wrongly” and “awkward” aren’t the connotations one would typically want to associate with an elevated well-done design but in this case that could not be less true. Design has the power to shape and form perceptions, and the quality of the design lies in how effectively it achieves that look. So in this case, we may underestimate the power of knowing how to create something ‘ugly’. I also really like what this article says about experimentation, I never really thought through how elements of textural manipulation could be facilitated, and chemicals and treatments make complete sense. I really appreciate how she describes her sensory journey when curating pieces for the project. There is an emphasis on touching, holding, and absorbing detail that I have never actively thought about when perceiving clothes. I am sure this heavily influences taste, though for some like myself, this may be entirely subconscious.
Costuming a character in a way that doesn’t fit them while still characterizing them, or Negative SPace Costuming, as I like to call it, is one of the things that I find most difficult in the job of costume design. It must be wearable and functional to the character’s life, but still it must be seen to be uncomfortable with a sense of wrongness to it. In The Power Of The Dog, I think Kirsty Cameron did a great job in the film and the costumes tell a story of their own. Not only on Kirsten Dunst, the hand crafted care that went into all the costumes is palpable despite their weathered look. Despite the aesthetic, the fact that they crew made these costumes and then carefully weathered them to look lived in suggests and intense level of detail rather than any amount of irreverence. I know I at least thought the movie would win Best Picture.
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