Leonardo's Butterfly

Jenny Beavan (born 1950 in London, England) is an English costume designer. She has won an Academy Award and has been nominated eight times, most recently for The King's Speech. Beavan also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Costume Design for the play Private Lives.
She is a graduate of the London-based Central School of Art and Design.

This time I would like to particularly discuss Beavan's work in the film "Ever After, A Cinderella Story". This movie is to this day my favorite adaptation of the Cinderella Fairy Tail.



I will start by talking about my favorite costume in the movie. This dress, most commonly named "Breathe" is simply one of the most beautiful creations. The details in the bodice and the sleeves are extremely intricate , yet the shape of the dress to me remains very simple and elegant.

I found a website that talks in particular detail about the construction and embroidery that was used for the dress. This images show some of the impressive hand sewing techniques that were used to create this impressive work of art.

The movie itself tries to be a portrayal of the "true" Cinderella story, that being not having a fairy god mother that uses magic, but this dress looks indeed very magical and helps bring that element of magic to the film without departing from its intentions.

The dress and the makeup bring about a very feminine look, but to me the wings are what showcases some of that inner strength that Danielle shows throughout the film. The wings arent angel or really butterfly looking, they have all these pointy ends that to me look sorta devilish. So even there in that flamboyant detail, the dress is balanced and really shows the true identity of the character.










In direct contrast to this dress we have Danielle's everyday, or work clothes. I love the fabric that they used for this, it looks so rough and cheap. A perfect fit for someone who is working as a servant.







The last costume I will talk about is her courtier costume. These are supposed to be clothes from Danielle's mother fit for a day in the Royal Court. Because of this, the outfit should be something that sort of doesnt really look like her, but that she is still able to wear and look beautiful on.

This dress looks very appropriate for the time and it flows beautifully. This image shows some other costumes wore by extras and minor characters. The time setting in the movie is that of Medieval France and I think that the costumes remain loyal to the time setting throughout the entire movie.

Costume Critique: One Day

One Day happens to be one of my favorite books, and I felt the movie portrayed the story well and did the book justice. To be honest, the costumes aren't anything out of the ordinary, nor was the film nominated for any awards. However, I loved how the designer Odile Dicks was able to capture 20 years of fashion to follow and highlight character development. The story is of two individuals, Emma and Dexter who meet the night of their University graduation and then one day each year we are given a glimpse into where life has taken them.

When we first meet Emma, her wardrobe is rather drab and outdated-but it certainly suits her character. She is very feminist and aspires to write a novel, but life quickly takes a turn and she finds herself uninspired and working at a crappy Mexican restaurant. In each period we see Anne Hathaway, I really felt that her costumes illustrated her station in life, be it finally becoming a novelist, a teacher, a lover, and I appreciated that I could relate to a lot of her transformations. From different designs, silhouettes, materials, long hair, short hair, glasses, her wardrobe remained real and true to life. I found it interesting that when it came to costumes, Anne Hathway's were really the focus of tranformation. Her costar, Jim Sturgess, however, had less of a focus on wardrobe and more on using his personality and life decisions to illustrate his self destructive nature. Coming from a wealthy background, his wardrobe is either suit and tie, or the latest fashion trend. 

I think of all costumes constructionally, my favorite would be the purple cocktail dress Emma wore. I loved how Odile incorporated the sheer sleeves with a very 1920's fringe along the hem of the dress. While being very simple with subtle detail, the dress is beautiful and I myself would love to wear it. 

Last lab of 2015

Before the break I worked on sizing up the pattern for Golde's shirt. I am really happy that I am learning how to do that. It is kinda frustrating because I am such a perfectionist. I want my lines to be perfect, so trying to make the curves just right is hard, or at least accepting that they won't be perfect is hard. I'm excited to finish the shirt and see it worn.

Robin Hood for the Playstation Generation

BBC TV show, Robin Hood. The first two seasons' costume designer was Frances Tempest.
Interview with Frances: http://www.boldoutlaw.com/robint/francestempest.html

FT: It became obvious that we had to do everything in Hungary and buy everything in Hungary. We couldn't spend money anywhere else. So we had to set up a little manufacturing studio to actually sit and churn the costumes out. And I had another little workshop set up doing all the painting and distressing and dyeing.

"I had to have another whole department -- well, three or four people -- on permanent renovation and repair duty. Although I wanted them to look worn, I didn't want them to look like scarecrows. So I had people constantly repairing and we had to have so many duplicates of every costume. I think we had something like ten outfits for Robin in the end."

"Robin's band -- I wanted then to look like eco warriors, really. The modern equivalent of the outlaw." Their outfits had to give them their own identities, but they still had to look like a group.
Robin's seude hoodie. He had a cotton version for when he fell in water or had oil poured on him, and a lightweight version.


Much, on the left, with his bandanna and sweater.
Robin in the middle, with his hoodie and the forest green color.
Below, he has a plain shirt with a scarf. Sometimes he wears a green one. He occasionally wears a vest over either one. He also wraps his arms with cloth around the sleeves.
Robin has a brown vest that has medals on the front. It shows that he's a war hero.

Here you can see his quiver going through his hood.

AWW: He also had the duster that was like a western hero, and almost like a regency cape.
FT:  It was a cross between a regency cape and Sherlock Holmes and How the West Was Won. I was trying to roll all of those sorts of things into it. Of course, it was tempered - like things always are - by practical considerations. He had to be able to get on and off his horse in it. He had to be able to fight in it. There were stuntmen, but a lot of the actors did an awful lot of their own stuntwork. So all of those practical considerations had to be uppermost.
AWW: You also had the other outfit for Guy, with the piping along the sleeves.
FT:  Yes, which was fastened with these wolf's head clips. And then he had wolves on the knuckles -- like knuckle dusters -- on the gauntlets. All I can say is that I spent a lot of time hanging about in motorbike shops in Budapest.

Guy of Gisborne, "a fantastic, sexy racing driver"
 

The Sheriff:
"I just wanted to be a dark figure and keep him as simple and sophisticated in a funny sort of a way. I mean [Keith] wanted to look like a drug dealer. That was his version of what he was playing. So we met somewhere in the middle on that."

Djaq went through the most change from season 1 to 2. In the first season she had to look boyish. Her military type jacket was very straight and square. It helped to hide her curves. In the second season, she had longer hair and they definitely showed her figure.





Marian



Night Watchman. Fitted clothing.

A world of Horror

Wendy Partridge is a costume designer who has worked in over 50 films. Her credits include Hellboy, Blade II, and Underworld: Evolution. She designed the costumes for Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation.

On this post I will focus on Partridge's designs for the Silent Hill Movies. The Silent Hill series started in 1999 as a PlayStation video game under the genre of Horror-Survival. Since then several installments of the game have been released, each presenting new characters and the experiences they live through when events beckon them to return to the mysterious town of Silent Hill.

However, the main protagonists clothes is not what makes Wendy Partridge worthy of my attention, it is rather the monsters and nightmarish apparitions that she was able to bring to life in the big screen that make her in my opinion a phenomenal designer.
In the movie, Silent Hill has become a nightmare prison for the fanatics who under their false beliefs tried to stop the apocalypse by torturing a small girl named Alessa. Within this Silent Hill everyone has a haggard decrepit look, letting us know about their suffering and pain.

 They are still wearing very conservative clothes, but all of them have a very old and dusty look about them. Signifying how long they have been trapped within the nightmare and how the prison is eating them away.

To further torture its victims, Alessa has created several monsters within Silent Hill. The most prominent ones withing the movie are the undead nurses and Pyramid Head.

Pyramid Head is Alessa's executioner, and it is my favorite costume of the movie. He is very simple clothing wise. He merely wears sort of an apron that is seemingly made of human skin sewn together. The most important part of this look however is his iconic head piece and the giant butcher knife that he wields. Both of these pieces are supposed to be made of very heavy material to the point of weighing him down. Partridge in a special feature included in the movie DVD talks about how they achieved that look without making the pieces too heavy by a treatment of paint that made both pieces look like very study rusty metal.

The nurses on the other hand, require more fabric work. They all wear their nurses uniform (one piece dress and cap), but an important element is how the nurses have their faces covered in bandages or simply have no face at all. Here again its not really about the display of sewing techniques, but about the fabric treatment that she achieves. She turns simple fabric into something terrifying, by giving it that decayed and almost putrefied look. The make up that lets us see the veins on the nurses bodies and their disfigured faces also enhances this effect.

lab lab lab

I love that we are finally sewing in class!!!
This week in lab we got to focus on constructing the prayer shawls for the men. There were so many new things that I learned, and though they were simple techniques, I was so grateful for the opportunity to practice them! I've never used bias tape before, and was amazed and how easy it is use and transform the look of a piece! Also, I normally am a person that loves to iron everything. I hate crooked seams and I hate when things don't look crisp and well made. But I recognize that ironing takes time, and with a little practice, it is possible to double fold an edge and hem something that looks clean. So I got to practice that on the edges of the prayer shawl and again was amazed at how easy that was. I don't think I would be as successful using that technique on a fabric that wasn't as structed as cotton or linen, but in terms of the prayer shawls, everything looked great. I have really loved seeing everything come together with the costumes and beginning to see this show come to life.

Costume Critique: The Duchess

As a film based on an influential political operator and fashion icon, the costumes were bound to be epic. The Duchess follows the life of Georgeina Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and woman
Georgeina marries the Duke for status and social climbing, however she soon realizes that there is more to life and marriage than status. She becomes aware that her husband is involved in multiple affairs, one of which includes her best friend. In coping with her heartbreak she becomes more involved in political campaigns and also an affair with an ambitious man who dreams of becoming prime minister. Not only was Georgeina extremely fashionable for her time, but she was also a very charasmatic individual. Naturally, the public gravitated towards her and adored everything she embodied.
For being a freelance costume designer and predominantly working on minor British films, Michael O'Connor is incredibly talented. While the film itself received only somewhat positive reviews, the Duchess won an Academy Award in 2008 for best costume design.
As always, I love this era and style of clothing, but I really appreciated O'Connor's own style shine through Georgeina's character. I can't even count how many times I've seen this movie, but never before had I realized just how extensive Georgeina's closet was. I love that O'Connor wasn't afraid to work with various textures and styles, yet he was able to create a wardrobe that was fluid and true to character. I think my favorite dress was at the end of the movie when Georgeina had given birth to a child that wasn't of her husband, and she was forced to turn the child over to distant family of Charles Grey. Her dress has a much softer feel to it, the pattern being a subtle floral and not adorned with her usual accessories. It is such a feminine dress and I think in a lot of ways it embodies motherhood. The focus is shifted from her beauty and clothing and instead highlights her transition of being a woman that doesn't necessarily live for love, but finds happiness in her children.