Dress Up and Play

Where The Wild Things ARe

This isn't exactly costume related, but it's a great little featurette on the upcoming 'Where The Wild Things Are' directed by Spike Jonze. It's talks with the original illustrator and author of the book, Maurice Sendak, and touches on the visual life of the film.

Coco Avant Chanel costumes part.2 The Rise

Part 1

‘She was the first good-looking couturier and because of her own strong look, everybody wanted to copy her. She was an artist who intellectualised couture for the first time,' explains Catherine Leterrier, costume designer of the exquisitely costumed film Coco Avant Chanel.

 

Legend has it Coco was preparing for a party and suddenly was inspired to cast off the traditional frou frou girly look for some male dominated pants. Myth has swelled to a point that she is now known as the first woman ever to wear pants.

 

"The fashion of that period was lovely, so it was difficult to show that Coco looked better than all these elegant women." - Catherine Leterrier

 

Coco Chanel's major influences were the introduction of menswear inspired pieces for women and the innovative use of jersey fabrics.

"she was her own muse", says Leterrier. 

Part 3 of Coco Avant Chanel costumes coming soon.....

Random Costume Sketch

Hot Tea in a Cup. Brought to you by the Follies era.

Madonna costume

Arianne Phillips was the subject of the last post... so it's only fitting that we talk about Madonna for a second. Here is a costume sketch from Givenchy for her Sticky and Sweet Tour. Arianne Phillips was the costume designer for the Sticky and Sweet Tour. As she usually does with all of Madonna's tours, she designed pieces, shopped for other pieces, and of course, specially commissioned labels such as Givenchy to custom make costumes for Madonna. It's quite a feat.

Can't tell you how much we love the lacings all the way up to the knee- so great.

Arianne Phillips

FANTASTIC article in the NY Times centered around costume designer Arianne Phillips ... she is quite amazing.

Read it here NOTE: you might have to click on the words to get the graphics unscrambled... I had to do that quite alot.

Random Costume Sketch

Costume Sketch by Carrie Robbins

Random Costume Sketch

I think this one is my favorite. Of All Time.

Random costume sketch

Let's just call them 'Harem Dancers' by M. Dresa.

500 Days of Summer costumes

'500 Days of Summer' starring Zooey Dechanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a super cute, highly stylized yet still comfortable feeling movie.

In the entire movie, Zooey, who plays Summer, is in blue. In every scene. Which highlights them there pretty peepers. 

Joseph has very geeky cool ties. Cause he's a geeky cool guy.

 

The film's costume designer is Hope Hanafin. Who, luckily for us, has her own portfolio website- yes!!! She's been doing some fantastic work, I am thrilled to be able to view it in a more visual format, not just as a list on imdb... but I digress... back to the blue:

 

In this interview with Hope, she talks about the choice of blue for Zooey's character and her use of it throughout the film: 

"That was an instruction given to me by the director, Marc Webb. Zooey has the most amazing blue eyes, so he wanted her character to be in blue. So she wears it, but more importantly, nobody else does."

 

"It was for her eyes, but it was also the romance from a male point of view. Even when you first see her, she has on a white shirt, but still has a blue butterfly. So it tracks all the way through. I just wanted there to be a way to make her stand out. Because she is such the object of desire that in a crowded room the audience and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) would immediately be drawn to her. She becomes a magnet."

"The only other place blue is used is the dance sequence, after Tom's first night with Summer. The whole world would turn into her, so that’s what everyone is in blue in that scene — the construction workers, the mailmen, the office workers. Everything becomes kind of a reflection of his love for her."

 

(Now I have to look for an article that talks about that wallpaper... I love that wallpaper!)

 

Read the full interview to find out where... or rather, where you CANNOT get that dress... cause I know you all want to know!

p.s. My favorite costume, however, is this cutie little petal shaped hat on Lil Summer in the title sequence:

How cute is that!

 

RIP John Hughes