Dress Up and Play

Random Costume Sketch

 

Look at this beautiful set of sketches from designer Travis Banton.

He was a splendid designer in the early 20th century... don't know which production or film these are from. Anyone who knows please leave a comment!

Mad Wars

HBO must be getting jealous that another cable network is having a long running tv drama hit because they've greenlit a period monstrosity that while in production will eat New York that will make all of us who live here beg for more Law & Orders.

Boardwalk Empire is set in 1920s atlantic city and is stun-nun-nun-ing.... but by the this article sounds like they're already buying excedrin in bulk due to the high production value.

 

More research to follow.... looks scrumptious though doesn't it!

Coco Avant Chanel part.1 The Beginning

Audrey Tautou plays Coco Chanel in the upcoming biopic Coco Avant Chanel. 

Costume Designer Catherine Leterrier was brought on for the challenging task of recreating the most influential couturier to ever grace the earth. As the film follows Chanel's life - mostly her early years- you will almost never see the tradition Chanel looks we know today.

 

Coco Chanel was abandoned by her parents early in life - having to find her own way by working as a seamstress and then as a milliner.

 

The movie follows Coco in her early years, concentrating on her rise and the early elements that would influence her design choices.

 

 

 

 

‘Of course there is pressure because Coco was the greatest. It is like, for an actor, when you play Shakespeare. But then I just approached it like any other film,' Catherine Leterrier

Ooh, Swish

Life Week- Adrian

I'm having a Theme Week! To celebrate the conclusion of my first Graduate School semester (*phew*), I'm posting fantastic costume images from the new Life Image Database every day. If you don't already know, Life Magazine has put their entire database of images dating back to 17something on the web. Just type in "source:life" and then keywords into the search box on Google. It's a fantastic resource for any and every subject of study.

But of course here we are all about costumes: beautiful, grotesque, bizarre and hopefully very entertaining.

Today is Dresses by Adrian, the amazingly talented Designer who designed hundreds of movies in the early 20th Century, including Dorothy's dress in the Wizard of Oz. These are beautiful images of dresses, although I don't know whom or what they were designed for (probably just GlamorousNess).

Source:Life

It's Summer

This has been the busiest summer I've ever had! I didn't even know I was this social.
I will resume film studies and sussing out info of coming attractions... I'm excited about Mamma Mia!

But until that happens, we're going to stick with fun costume history references and design details.

Did you know that the Dover site has a cool feature where you can sign up and get free pics and clip art ever week- they send it right to your email along with info on sales and such. (Just check the "Free Samples" link on the left side.) Even if you're not a clip art user, I always save these pics every week and find them a great design reference.

This week one of the books featured was a great Women Illustrated book- check out this cutie bathing suit! I wish I had it for my Sunday beach trip... ooof I've been to too many BarBQue s this summer to keep sporting my old two piece. This would be much cuter:

Leatherhead

jock, originally uploaded by Hepped-up on Goofballs.

Ephemerically Yours sent me this picture after seeing how much I like these helmets. Look how cool his little stripey unform is too. How funny is that tropical setting in the back?

Leatherheads

Every morning as I go to work I've been seeing this poster in the subway station... I love it!! I don't think it could get any bette than this. *Pow* straight pic! No big letters or badly collaged pics of the actors in funny arrangements. Just a straight shot of the characters in the most awesome outfits I've seen in a long time.

The website is set up really great, they have the sort of old-timey poster sort of graphics. Pretty cool. Not much stuff on it though.

I'm in love with these uniforms. I'm having a sort of uniform 'Thing' lately. (Although that does not pertain to live men... how odd.) I added in this last shot to show off how the palette translates throughout the scenes. The color palette is oddly bright even though it uses muted tones. The mud is killing me! Was that a happy accident? Did Louise Frogley foresee the the mud brown color as a dominant one and worked from there? It makes the movie for me- I can't wait to see it!

Loving the bow detail on the hat. Awesome leather jacket on the Cloonster there. Nice and beat up. Emerald City glasses...okay...I can go with it.

Some bright tights. And a bright coat too. Like I said, really bright colors.. but it ends up looking very controlled and muted on screen- that's the biggest mystery: How Do They Do That?

Current Costume Updates

Here are some great articles about the current nominees:

More of the same of Jaqueline Durran the greatest dress of the year. The part I liked best ends the debate on the one whole dress vs. seperate pieces issue once and for all :

'It also had to survive a secret rendezvous on a bookshelf!

Well, we had lots of the gowns. The fabric was so fine that the bodices kept tearing. We had three or four skirts and 10 bodices and when they tore, we would quickly repair them. But it only took about a day to shoot that scene.- Jacqueline Durran '

... and one of them is being auctioned off here.(Be sure to scroll down to see a good clip of the film showing the dress.)

And a great article that reveals tidbits into the genius that is Colleen Atwood.

How about Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall's characters? They really are quite comical and cartoony.

Alan [Judge Turpin] was the slightly grubby man-about-town. His clothes have two or three color screens on the fabrics that gave him an oily, slick feeling. Alan and Timothy [Beadle Bamford] are the Romantics, that's what we called them. They are actually a bit more Georgian, the period before the Victorian era, a bit more decadent and flowery.

When people have a great moment in their lives, they tend to stay in that moment stylistically. - Colleen Atwood
(I love how she thinks about that stuff!)

Watch the video here which Alan Rickman talks about his ideas for keeping the guy dirty.

Then and Now:Valentino and the Golddiggers of 1933

This is the first in what will hopefully be many posts illustrating the evolution of trends and design details and silhouettes. This is one of my favorite things to see- when something from the past pops right into the present with a seemingly fresh take.
Below is a sleeve that I could not take my eyes off of. I took about ten still frames of this suit:

This is from the Busby Berkely movie Golddiggers of 1933. This is the lovely Miss Ginger Rogers modeling this lovely suit that I'm going to imagine is a shade of pink. The designer of this movie is credited as being Orry-Kelly but only specifically "gowns." So I'm not quite sure that this goes under that heading. I would imagine this is from the Production Company's costume warehouse where a full-time wardrobe staff member picked this out somewhere one day with the pleasure of going home and saying he or she dressed the world-famous Miss Rogers but getting absolutely no credit for it whatsoever. So I will take this moment to personally thank this person- whoever you are, wherever you are! Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!

...a few months later I came across this great picture of Reese Witherspoon in Australia Harper's Bazaar:

It's so pretty! It's a Valentino Dress and Jacket. I'm sure this sleeve came up at least a few points during the 80s on Dallas on either Alexis or Krystal or both- but I dont have any pictures of those. (I'm looking)