Frock Flicks: Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick has been a mainstay in Hollywood for decades. She doesn’t particularly focus on period film — she’s known for contemporary films like Fatal Attraction (1987), Wall Street (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), Speed (1994), and Showgirls (1995). Nonetheless, she’s done a decent number of historical and fantasy films, plus received a lot of acclaim recently for her designs for Oppenheimer (2023) — and received an Emmy for Behind the Candelabra (2013) — so I thought it would be interesting to take a look at her career!
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Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick (who has worked on films like Cinderella, Behind the Candelabra, The Greatest Showman, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and Bridgerton, to name a few) has a great quote in the article about her approach to period pieces: we suspended disbelief. We made it romantic. We made it classic. And we made it beautiful. And with that, it was very freeing to create a story filled with these wonderful characters that were not limited by a boundary of time”. This made me think a lot about semiotics. Audiences are a lot smarter than they realize or give themselves credit for. They see a shift dress and understand 1920s, or a pigeon-breast and understand 1910s (even if they can’t explain why exactly). Mirojnick is an expert and putting in enough detail so that the audience feels a sense of time and place, but puts enough of her personal flair alongside it where it still feels fresh, new, and theatrical. My personal favorite design of hers would be Michelle Pfieffer’s final evil queen look from Maleficent. The cut of the corset and the skirt vaguely suggest medieval, but the over-the-top pearl detailing elevates it into complete fantasy.
I knew about Ellen Mirojnick from her work on Bridgerton, but I didn’t know that her resume included such a long and varied list of films. I think this list is a good example of how to branch out and learn to costume a variety of genres and time periods, especially with her earlier films. One of the things that stood out to me in this article was the fact that she worked on Oppenheimer, The Greatest Showman, and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. These three were films I did some research on for personal enrichment, or just a big fan of, so I was surprised that this was the first time I was hearing her name in connection to them. Another thing that stood out to me was how I had strong opinions, some negative and some positive, about the costume design in most of the films on the list that I have seen. It seems like for me, Ellen Mirojnick’s costume designs are a hit or miss.
Literally, there is not a single design on here that is not absolutely gorgeous. Ellen Mirojnick, who before this article I didn’t know was responsible for all of these amazing films, has an amazing ability to combine historical elements with modern touches, something which perfectly sets the overall vibe of each piece, but makes it appealing for the modern audience. While I’m sure that many are mad about Mirojnick’s apparent lack of historical accuracy, I think these beautiful costumes slide. I also believe that all of the films featured here were created with the intent of not exactly following the conventions of the time. This may lead some people to a false sense of what historical outfits really look like, but I think what is really important here is that the costumes serve the story. Which these all did. I think it is summed up in the little section of The Greatest Showman, where the article reads “We suspended disbelief. We made it romantic. We made it classic. And we made it beautiful…‘Greatest Showman’ costumes go for a timeless but historic look’.” And I think that this is the crux of what is making all of Mirojnick’s designs so effortlessly beautiful and appealing.
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