This year for best costume design five creative movies are nominated. The most interesting part is that two of them are snow white movies, yet the costume in these movies are completely different and not at all identical. If Mirror Mirror had the most extravagant costumes, on the other hand Snow white and the huntsmen had practical costumes, then Lincoln had historic costumes and Anna Karenina had periodic costumes. It will be quite tough to see any of them loose since all the costumes were a feast for the eye. May the best Man/Woman win.
- Anna KareninaJacqueline Durran To depict the Russian upper crust, Durran created costumes for the main characters like Anna, Kitty and Count Vronsky that convey high drama through bustled dresses, furry stoles, severe necklines, and many military uniforms .ANNA (KEIRA KNIGHTLEY)
At a party on the night that leads to her submission to Count Vronsky, Anna wore red. Like many of the gowns in the film, this one was in fact made of two pieces. The bodice is cut short in the front, with a long bustle tail in the back that rests on the full skirt beneath.
The sparkling trim that appears along the bodice is actually a separate piece from the 1950s, which Ms. Durran found at a vintage sale, and worked into the final outfit. ANNA IN BLACK
- In the book poor Kitty, as a young debutante, doesn’t miss the significance of the black dress worn by Anna Karenina to a ball where both dance with Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Tolstoy described the dress in the most fantastic way. "At the ball held not long afterward, Vronsky dances the first dance with Kitty, who looks radiant. Anna appears, dressed not in lilac but in black, which Kitty immediately realizes is Anna’s best color. Kitty is puzzled by Anna’s refusal to respond when Vronsky bows to her. Kitty dances many waltzes with Vronsky but later finds Anna and Vronsky dancing together. Anna looks elated and triumphant. For the final mazurka, Kitty turns away her suitors, expecting Vronsky to ask her to dance. She is stunned to see that Vronsky has spurned her to dance the last dance with Anna".. It wasn’t really about the dress as much as it was about how the dress framed Anna.’s beauty.
- While the full skirt shape reflects what a gown of the period might have looked like, Ms. Durran studied the 1950s designs of Balenciaga and Dior to create the bodice, making it seem slightly off kilter. To highlight a sense of extravagance, Anna wears Chanel jewelry throughout the film, recognizable by the camellia motif. Also of note, the rest of the dance party in this scene was dressed in very light colors so the black dress on Ms. Knightley functions visually, because Anna is standing out against this society.”KITTY(ALICIA VIKANDER)
wears a symbolically white dress trimmed with pink rosettes. This dress made her look childlike, as a counterpoint to Anna’s sophistication. Kitty does have more of a costume arc in terms of the progression of the film, As she grows up, she goes from wearing sugary pink, baby blue and white to wearing champagne beige when she is married to Levin and movies into his house. color evolves to a much more sophisticated palette.Count Vronsky
The military costumes are an approximation of Russian uniforms, Count Vronsky appears throughout the film in a variety of minimalist uniforms, in shades of gray, pale blue or white, including a very brief appearance of one with fancy gold trim on both shoulders.
Karenin, as the cuckolded husband, meanwhile, gets a look of his own. Karenin (Jude Law), above, more often appears in severe-looking outfits, with stiff and strict lines that come to reflect his character’s personality, or perhaps constrain it. - Les MisérablesPaco Delgado
Les Miserables costumes are all about historically accurate bicorn hats to the high-waisted button-front trousers and the revolutionary rosettes, Remember that this movie is about the miseries and struggle of the characters ,hence there are no extravagant or rich costumes
FANTINE (ANNE HATHAWAY)Fantine begins in soft pink and lavender but when she becomes a prostitute is moved to a deep crimson, mirroring the red prison costume of Valjean. Along with the other women at the factory who assemble rosaries, she wears gauntlets and a bonnet of rich blue, Fantine is scraping a living as a factory girl as she hides her daughter away. In terms of the fashions of the time, Dresses are still loose and flowing with high waistlines.
Bear in mind that Fantine had no money to spare and would only have dressed simply, though even simple dresses of the time look fussy to modern eyes. JAVERT (RUSSELL CROWE)Inspector Javert is first encountered as a prison guard, and remains in law enforcement throughout his career. He is smartly dressed in a uniform coat with a double row of metal buttons, and in the earlier days of his career also wears a hat in the distinctive style worn by officials of the post-Revolution era.
Initially, as a prison guard he wears a turquoise blue uniform. There was use of more and more silver on his uniform, probably to portray what an important person he became at the end of his life."
COSETTE (AMANDA SEYFRIED)She started as a girl dressed in black because she was living in a convent and had this sort of saint kind of look, a proper girl at a convent school. The style of cossete is excellently described in the book by Victor Hugo "And then she was no longer a boarding-school miss, with her plush bonnet, merino dress, thick shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her with beauty, and she was well dressed, with a species of simple, rich, and uneffected elegance. She wore a black brocade dress, a cloak of the same material, and a white crape bonnet; her white gloves displayed the elegance of her hand which was playing with the ivory handle of a parasol, and her satin boot revealed the smallness of her foot." Marius first glimpse of Cosette is at the market, where she is wearing a bonnet lined in pleated pink silk that has a halo effect. Later on, her white bedclothes are finely embroidered with lilacs, vines and other blossoms. It probably may be an explosion of emotions coming from her in romance. - LincolnJoanna Johnston
MARY TODD (SALLY FIELD)
The use of crinoline to balloon out dresses was at its historical peak in 1865, Lincolns wife was criticized for spending too much on clothing. She wasn’t a great looker, Mary Todd, but the over-trussing of her, her adornments, clothes, headdresses, and bonnets, helped her look great in a way. SallyField was asked to gain quite a bit of weight forLincoln, as much to fill out her face as her waistline, so she would look more like the historic Mrs. Lincoln.
A big challenge was to differentiate the men’s apparel within the narrow confines of style and fashion of the period. That was especially required in the crowded scenes in the House of Representatives where over 100 characters were crowded closely together debating whether to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.LINCOLN (DANIEL_DAY_LEWIS)Day-Lewis’outfits were more than just unstructured. His clothes were also designed to be a bit loose fitting, mirroring Lincoln’s gangly appearance . The costume designer excelled in recreating Lincoln’s iconic silhouette. Another masterful touch was the shawl she made for the actor. Day-Lewis wrapped himself in it in so many ways, using it to reflect his moods and thoughts, depending on the way he wore it. It was absolutely brilliant. The hat is also an integral part of Lincoln's costumes . In a Vanity Fair article the designer said that she even requested an approximation of the original hat’s Moroccan-red leather lining. She say's“He tucked a lot of his paperwork in there, which you see in the film”m
- Eiko Ishioka
Tony nominee (M. Butterfly) and Oscar winner (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). She led the creation of more than 400 costumes for Mirror Mirror. The spectacular handmade gowns that Snow White and the Evil Queen wear required as much as 35 yards of fabric. The Evil Queen’s massive wedding gown weighs more than 60 pounds and caused Julia Roberts to pull a thigh muscle when turning too quickly in it!
Visually, the film is the final masterwork of costume designer Eiko Ishioka, passed way from pancreatic cancer in January at the age of 73.
The costumes for “Mirror Mirror,” nevertheless, include more than a few knowing winks, including a wedding dress of blue with an enormous orange bow that pays tribute to the Snow White of Walt Disney. Perhaps the most visually exciting example of Ms. Ishioka’s work is in a grand ball scene in which the guests are dressed in gowns inspired by animals — a swan, a walrus, a giraffe — all in shades of winter white, while the queen, played by Ms. Roberts, wears a venomous shade of red.queen’s character is a person who only cares about power,he said. The designer turned the queen into a peacock, literally a red peacock. to show how whimsical and driven with power she was.
- Snow White and the HuntsmanColleen Atwood
SNOW WHITE (KRISTEN STEWART)The designer took a practical approach to Snow White’s understated ensemble, which Stewart wears for most of the movie, by determining how a young woman locked away in a tower for seven years realistically might be dressed. “Snow White is a totally different kind of character. She's much less princess-y and more of a bad-ass girl. Her costume is leather with clamps and different stitching on it, so it’s quite different.f
Atwood did hold onto one aspect of Snow White’s signature friill. As for rejecting the princess’s primary colors, the the olive and light blue just suited Kristen’s eyes and hair. The colors also looked good in the forest and against many different backgrounds, which was important, because she is in it for so long.”EVIL QUEEN (CHARLIZE THERON)In addition to modernizing Snow White, Atwood, who is known for detailed, handcrafted costumes, created a dozen elaborate looks for Charlize Theron’s evil Queen Ravenna. or the queen’s climactic showdown with Snow White, she outfitted Theron in a chainmail gown with leather spike details The fairest design of them all, however, might be Charlize Theron’s wedding gown, worn during Ravenna’s royal union to Snow White’s father, the ill-fated king. the severely corseted dress. It was our way of telegraphing [the queen’s] evil edge. All of the fine embroidered details are actually leather.
You can read Anna Karenina and Les Miserables through the below linkhttp://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Anna-Kareninahttp://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Les-Miserables/pdf/viewREFRENCES:Seventeen Magazine.comVanity Fair.comVouge.comLA times.comNewyorktimes.comFree-e books.net
