Best costumes in a period movie 7/10

Atonement

{I swear this is my last Keira Knightley post....at the moment. she just seems to be in every period movie with beautiful costumes! :)}

Jacqueline Durran seems to be brought up a lot when it comes to period movies as well (That's because she is AMAZING! KEEP IT UP).

Once again we have Jacqueline Durran to thank for the famous green dress that Keira wears while playing Cecilia in the film Atonement. 
The famous emerald green dress worn by Knightley was voted the best costume of all time. So I thought I would focus only on that one piece because so much can be said about it. 
Jacqueline designed the entire dress from scratch. Even though the movie was set in the 1930's early 40's, Durran wanted the dress to look purely couture and not the traditional 1930's style.

Joe Wright wanted the dress to be emerald green. Greens used in films are supposed to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, this is why Alfred Hitchcock made his character Tippi Hedren wear a green suit in his film The Birds. 
Green is also the color of temptation, which a large character indicator for the movie. Cecilia wears all variations of green after the incarceration of her love Robbie. Green also symbolizes Cecilia's mood at the dinner party as well as Briony's envy. Green comes to symbolize later in the movie Cecilia's tortured life.

Best costumes in a period movie 6/10

Cabaret

Charlotte Flemming is known for her work in costume design in countless German films. She was perfect to create the designs for the characters of Sally Bowles, the MC and Brian Roberts. Sally Bowles among many classic characters have been known for their combination of masculinity as well as femininity. Charlotte Flemming made sure to make the costumes a symbol for both Sally Bowels as well as for Liza Minnelli. Sally is masculine with their independence and feminine in her free sexuality. The costumes in this film were based in 1930's Nazi Germany in the comfort of the Kit Kat Club.

Like many movies from this era, directors had the option of filming in color. In this case was an important dramatic choice. Apart from her sensual outfits, Sally Bowles is well known for her green sparkly nails as well as her dramatic eye shadow. Fosse needed the color to portray the main theme of the film which is "Nothing is as it seems" 

Best costumes in a period movie 5/10

MEMOIRS of a GEISHA

Colleen Atwood has won an Oscar and a BAFTA for her work in costume design for Memoirs of a Geisha. The book and the story line for the movie was fictitious. However; Geisha's were a real part of Japanese culture. Atwood researched both Pre-War 1930's Geisha fashions as well as Japanese impressionist art. While in Japan she came across the work of artist Yumeji Takehisa which dated from the beginning of the Taisho Period and Keiko Period, she knew this was going to be her inspiration for the film.      
Atwood's designs didn't follow traditional Geisha design, while kimonos don't normally accentuate the body, Atwood decided to show that the women had a figure underneath the kimono in order to appeal to a more modern audience. She said, “We wanted to see a shoulder, have the illusion of a waist and have a sense of breasts beneath the kimono. 
As far as fabrics went she customized her own fabrics to make the kimonos rather than using more traditional silks and cottons for her designs. Also a traditional high end kimono takes about a year to make in which Colleen and her crew were getting a kimono done about every 2-3 weeks.
Every character had their own color pallet for their costumes. Mameha symbolized an accomplished and perfect Geisha had more soft and luxurious colored silks to represent her kind nature.

Hatsumomo had bright shocking colors to show her rebelliousness as well as her bad and jealous attitude. 

         Sayuri's kimonos changed as she became a more successful and well known Geisha, transitioning from basic to cotton to elegant Silk kimonos.

Colleen's costumes to work on were Hatsumomo's chinchilla fur collared winter coat as well as Sayuri's dance performance kimono. Sayuri's dance number told the story of a women who got dumped by a man and rapidly goes insane. Traditional kimonos didn't have red on the underside of kimono sleeves, However; Atwood stuck by her decision and does not regret it. 

  

 

Best costumes in a period movie 4/10

THE DUCHESS

Oscar award winner Michael O'Connor for The Duchess has won many other awards for his fantastic work in costume design. What appealed to him most about working on the costumes for The Duchess was being able to create pieces for that time period when fashion was moving away from heavy upholstered garments to more classic styles. In researching for the movie Michael used descriptions from Amanda Foreman's book Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, as well as looking at original portraits of the duchess.

O'Connor's favorite costume as well as mine was the Political Campaign outfit where she wore a dress that resembled a soldiers uniform with the Whig party colors. The outfit was a big risk for her because dressing like a man was not proper for women back during that time. It was also a risk because Georgiana liked making a statement and people thought her lack of feminism in the way she dressed was one of the reasons she was not happy in her marriage.

Like a lot of other movies, costumes are a big part in bringing out a character as well as add symbolism to the movie. As the movie begins Georgiana is young and innocent which you can see in her clothing and accessories. She wears a ribbon in her hair and her clothes are very light and flowy as well as simple. But once she marries the Duke, her clothes are the only thing that express her feelings and emotions. Like the well known quote states ‘You [men] have so many ways of expressing yourself, whereas we must make do with our hats and dresses.’ Since fashion was the only industry women actually controlled in terms of deciding what was the next popular trend, Georgiana made it her passion, she made it the one thing she was good at. Fashion and her children were the only things that got her through her marriage.