It has been a dazzling, ambitious year for costume design. This year’s crop of films have brought to realization the scope of worlds through costume as unique and enthralling as they are varied and distinctive. The standouts in costuming include Albert Nobbs (Roadside), designed by Pierre-Yves Gayraud; War Horse (Disney), designed by Joanna Johnston; Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides (Disney), designed by Penny Rose; J. Edgar (Warner Bros.), designed by Deborah Hopper; Hugo (Paramount), designed by Sandy Powell, and W.E. (Weinstein), designed by Arianne Phillips. The contenders for this year’s costume design have all transported audiences to a different time and place with their expressive costumes. But that’s where the similarities end.
In Albert Nobbs, Pierre-Yves Gayraud has transformed actress Glenn Close, starring as the titular character, into a man. Director Rodrigo Garcia and Close, who has been working on getting the film made since she first took on the role of Albert Nobbs in an 1982 off-Broadway stage production adapted from George Moore’s short story, trusted Pierre-Yves Gayraud to help visually realize a character whose identity is derived in many ways from the costume he wears. Albert Nobbs, is after all, a woman who is disguising herself as a man in order to find employment and survive in the harsh man’s world of 19th century Ireland. “A very important point was to imagine the way the character could find himself by making his silhouette really masculine,” said Gayraud. The costume designer has been splashing films with his costume design in France since the ’90s, where he received a nomination in 1993 for the Cesar Award for Indochine (1992). Stateside, he has worked on The Bourne Identity (2002) and the upcoming Cloud Atlas.
The costume design in War Horse takes audiences through the galloping history of the First World War. Costume designer Joanna Johnston, who has been a part of director Steven Spielberg’s longtime close-knit artistic crew since Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989), thoroughly researched World War I in order to recreate the time in all its authenticity. Johnston has already worked with Spielberg on a World War II film, Saving Private Ryan (1998). The film is an epic spectacle with the wardrobe to match. During her extensive study of WWI documentation, Johnston discovered that at this period in history, the officers did not wear standard issue uniforms. Officers had uniforms made to their own personal preferences by tailors. “The reality was that there are no uniforms from the First World War that you can use in the film. We had to manufacture quite a lot in quite a small space of time. I think we did about 800 uniforms in about 7 weeks,” Johnston said.
J. Edgar follows the story of real historical figures and therefore costume designer Deborah Hopper was committed to making the characters seem as real as possible. “[My team and I] did research about Hoover, looked at stills for what he looked like and the different decades. We did research on everyone because everyone in the movie were historical figures,” Hopper explained. The film spans several decades as it follows the eventful public and private life of the man who was the first director of the FBI. The clothing helps tell the story that progresses nonlinearly through time by identifying the different decades of Hoover’s life. It was a thoughtful effort to follow the lifetimes of several characters. Hoover alone had about 80 costumes changes. The accomplishment is obvious, as J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio), Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) are all portrayed with a seamless realism in the Clint Eastwood directed film.
With the majestic offerings of so many well-designed costumes, it will be interesting to see who takes the highest honors this awards season.