Vanity Fair: Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Costume designers Amy and Sidonie Roberts would know: On Netflix’s award-winning series, they’re the ones tasked with placing it there. Making vows—to God, to country, to staying married even if miserable—are kind of a thing on The Crown, which debuts the first part of its final season on November 16. In the four seasons they’ve worked on the show, Amy and Sidonie made a promise of their own: “Clothes, not costumes.”
3 comments:
I love the statement made by the designers, “Clothes, not costumes.” As often as The Crown feels like a spectacle and a fictional show, it is in truth portraying very real events with people that still exist and have to live in the world today. The dedication of the designers to keep the outfits true to the period and reflect actual outfits worn by these people is admirable. Discussing the design of the final outfits, it must have been a bit traumatic to have to study footage of a car crash and the subsequent death. The designers would have had to separate their emotions from their work in order to achieve the proper accuracy that they wanted. Again, their desire to recreate the outfits as accurately as possible to retain focus on the event rather than the clothing is admirable. As a designer, it is difficult to admit, “My design and I are not the center of attention for this moment” and the fact that they do it makes them two people to look up to.
I simply forget how much clothing can mean to our brains. We assume, judge, and make first impressions all based on what you are wearing whether you like it or not, or realize it or not. Its usually not intentional but our brain is used to making connections and generalizations and that is extremely influential. I sometimes forget how costume designers use this tool to their advantage. The costume designers of this show said they were dedicated to making “clothes not costumes.” I think for a piece so dedicated to accuracy and telling the reality of the story, this makes a lot of sense. They want to be able to most accurately tell the story of the characters they are depicting and essentially the real lives of the people. What better way to do that than having the characters wear what the real person did? I think it's impressive what the designers must have done to create the closet of one of the most influential icons of our age. Almost everyone knows who Princess Diana is and so many more know of her influence in the fashion world. I applaud any designer willing to take on that pressure.
As someone who wants to go into costume design, I found that there was a lot to learn from this article. Firstly, I like that the costume designers said that they were designing clothes rather than costumes. I feel like this could be a very tricky part of costuming. There is a fine line between clothes and costumes and it seems like it would be difficult to not cross that boundary. I thought that it was really nice that the designer felt such a strong need to recreate what princess Diana was wearing exactly on the day that she got into a car accident and died. I think that it does this moment justice and does not attempt to romanticize it in any way. Since this was such an important moment in history, replicating her clothes exactly helps to tell this moment truthfully. However, It must have been kind of unsettling having to look at so many of those pictures.
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