Tag Archives: Alexander McQueen

“The Hunger Games” costumer Judianna Makovsky combines past, current looks for film

23 Mar

Today opens the much-anticipated (and hyped) film  “The Hunger Games,” a dystopian fantasy where poor young people are pitted against one another in a battle to the death.  But have you noticed what they’re wearing?  I certainly have noticed, and not necessarily the garb on the star-crossed young folk, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson (who, in the story, are given their own stylists), but also the clothing and coiffures on actors Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, and Elizabeth Banks….

Poor horrible, horrible Effie. I'd rather fight for my life than have to wear this get-up. yeesh!

I’ve been fascinated by the horrific-looking Effie Trinket,  that Ga Ga-esque fuscha nightmare, replete with leg-o-mutton sleeves like I haven’t seen since the 1980′s.  What about Tucci’s blue samurai haircut, Bentley’s weird facial hair, and that the residents of District 12 look like they stepped out of a King Vidor film of the 1930′s.  Well, there’s no coincidence here.  Costume designer Judianna Makovsky (also the costume designer for the Harry Potter films), spoke about her work and influences to the Los Angeles Times and InStyle.com , with the latter of the two a little more (perhaps inappropriately) enthusiastic about translating the film’s looks to our world.

Makovsky, however, was most interested in keeping the looks consistent with descriptions in the book.  For Katniss Everdean’s “girl on fire dress” Makovsky says:  “I wanted the dress to be red, but not so covered in stones that it would look like something out of Dancing With the Stars…”  And, of course, the dress doesn’t actually burst into real flames–CGI helped in that department.

Many of the designers who influenced Makovsky’s “Capitol Couture” fashions include Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rodarte, and Elsa Schiaparelli, queen of surrealist fashion design in the 1930;s and 40′s.  So it’s no wonder that I’m seeing the 1980′s, since Gaultier and McQueen’s work was highly influential back then–and certain motifs and themes keep getting recycled into 21st century fashion.  The Capitol dwellers have been described as “opulent” and other word to connote their high-fashion status.  But with the colored-hair wigs (green, pink, etc) I can’t help but think of the sad-looking women with bizarrely colored wigs in Stanley Kubrick’s classic A Clockwork Orange–another dystopian society movie with kids as the main focus.

A purple-haired pub waitress in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."

Wardrobe for Katniss and other District 12 dwellers is most definitely influenced by workwear of the past.  Makovsky looked at photos from that time period, to get a better sense of everyday fashion. Since there are always more regular folk than fashionistas, the numbers of costumes for the extras (as well as the principals) came from a combination of vintage finds and costumes hand-made and fitted for the film.  With roughly 600 charater extras, there wound up being a total of 1800 costumes just for this group alone!

Makovsky says she hopes that many of the costumes will go on display somewhere after the movie.

Yet there’s another rather silly and superfluous side to all this great costuming.  Lion’s Gate, the Hunger Games film company, decided to go all out with their social media promotions for the film, including a tumblr titled Capitol Couture.  This has to be one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen: everything from the dull colors to the District Style Challenges screams promotion desperation.

Seriously, this is a dystopian film.  Lots of people get killed.  You want to dress like the idiots of the Capitol and the “citizens” who are marked for death?  Really?  That kind of promotion seems tacky and jaundiced, and almost seems to highlight an ironic mocking of fans and moviegoers.  Same can be said for a feature at InStyle.com, which talks about Katniss’ spring style.  Really???  That’s like the Lisabeth Salanader look for H&M.    All I can do is chalk this stuff up to the annals of “When Film Promotions Go Horribly Wrong.”    If film companies and p.r. departments are looking to capture some sort of fashion zeitgeist of these films, they really can’t.  The looks speak for themselves, and audiences will adopt those looks if they find them cool.  Companies cannot manufacture that kind of fashion passion.  It just happens.  Trying to manufacture it only makes them look like the people we’re supposed to be rooting against in films like The Hunger Games.  How Ironic.

 

Bests and Worsts from the Oscars 2012 (and one horrific Grammy look)

1 Mar

Whew! It’s been awhile since I posted…and in that time we had two high-profile awards shows with some incredible–and incredibly awful–fashions.  I’ve got to say that the Oscars were the far more fabulous show, while the Grammys left me wondering “what the heck was that?”  Although I believe some of the soberness was owed to the death of Whitney Houston the night before the show, which may have caused some celebs to make last-minute wardrobe changes.  Therefore, I only have one outstandingly horrid Grammy choice–one that could have easily been averted with minor tweaks.

That being said, I will proceed with a few of my favorite Oscar looks (the rest you can find at Pinterest on my Oscars Best-Worst 2012  board.) Oh, one final thought:  I read a gazillion Best-Worst Dressed articles from both the U.S. and U.K. and there was no hands-down winner that *everyone* though was either the best or the worst.  Fashion is starting to take on the vibe of surrealist literature: either you get it, or you don’t, but who decides whether you’re getting it right or not getting it at all is a subjective judgement….

My first favorite has to be Viola Davis in this incredible, gorgeous green Vera Wang.  While some reviewers thought the pleats at the bottom were too much, IMO they’re perfect, bringing movement into what would have been a rather stiff ensemble (and giving it that “undersea” look that was popular at some of the 2010 fall social events in NYC.) More important to this look is Davis’ natural hair, which complements the look perfectly and sticks it to  the Anglo beauty standard.  In fact, the same reviewer who didn’t like the dress also didn’t like Davis’ hair, saying it was “inappropriate.”  Excuse me!?!  Women should not need to make themselves over to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Beauty Standard in order to be beautiful.  We are who we are, and beauty is beauty, even if it ain’t whitey-style.

Next came Octavia Spencer in Tadashi Soji.   It seems that many designers have no idea what to do with a woman who has curves.  Soji has no problem with a woman who has curves *and* isn’t in her late 20′s.  The dress highlights her waist and draws the eye both up to her face and down to the beautiful draping. The simple sleeve makes it elegant, not matronly (unlike Melissa McCarthey’s disaster, which looked better suited to a  middle-aged mother of the bride.)

The last of my faves that I’ll blog about (you can see the others on Pinterest) is this Alexander McQueen gorgeousness on Jessica Chastain.  I’m a sucker for embroidery, and I love the way the bodice embroidery resembles a golden butterfly hovering over a fields that traipse along the bottom of the gown.  Chastain’s soft hair and make-up are the perfect complement to a dress that is an absolute work of art….

And now for my top three worsts–and there were some bad ones….

It pains me to say this because I *love* Melissa McCarthey, and I know a good friend of hers designed this dress for her, but, my god, as someone else said, the designer should be taken out and beat with this dress.  Neither the color–mother of the bride mauve–nor the cut does a darned thing for Melissa.  She needed something that gave her lift, possibly with a short or cap sleeve, and not that fluttery butterfly stuff that’s there.  yuck!  The gathers/ruching/pleats or whatever they are on the bustline are just awful.  If this is the worst thing that happened to Melissa McCarthey this year, then she should pack this dress off to a charity and move on…

What can one say about Kristen Wiig, other than that she might want to consider firing her stylist.  Every time I’ve seen the woman at an awards show, she’s wearing gowns with colors that range from Old Nun’s Pantyhose Nude to Support Hose Beige.  WTF?  Wiig’s an attractive woman, so what’s with the beige?  A nice teal, perhaps.  But please! no more with the beige.

It’s tough picking the last of the worst, because there were a lot of worsts.  Could have been Leah Thompson’s silvery mother of the groom ensemble, to Angelina Jolie’s “legware” (oh, god, I could go on and on about that mess) but I just have to take a stab (literally) at Glenn Close in Zac Pozen.  Ok, we got too much going on here.  We got some fancy stuff going on with the corset-style bodice (anyone other than me getting tired of seeing that style, esp on women who might not ever need to wear a corset?)  to what looks like a painfully tight mermaid skirt.  Not just tight but a tad too long.  Oh, and where do I start with that jacket?  Really? A tuxedo style jacket?  Really??  I’d rather have seen that jacket with a pair of really cool trousers, a drapey low-cut cream or oyster colored shell underneath, and some cool shoes.  It’s just way too much for a fussy mermaid style dress.  yeesh!

Ok, so that clears up the Oscars.  And, as I said, I only have one ensemble from the Grammys to take a swipe at, and I’m only doing that because I really expected more from…..

FERGIE!  Just because it’s Jean Paul Gauthier doesn’t mean it can’t be a hot mess.  and this dress is a serious hot mess.   It’s not just that the word “orange” doesn’t rhyme with anything, but also that orange is a horrific color to match with anything.  Any color other than black would have made it look like a beach cover-up (and quite frankly, shortened up, it would make a super beach cover-up) but then again black under orange makes us think Trick or Treat.  And the only person who got tricked here is Fergie.  I love the woman–she’s a strong performer who truly loves what she’s doing, and it shows in her work.  But wow!  this is just one of the all time awfuls.  How could have it been improved?  A nude or medium pink slip, perhaps?  I’ m not sure even that could have helped it.

 

 

 

 

 

Thom Browne Men’s Fall-Winter 2012/2013 Collection: WTF??

28 Jan

After years and years of women’s designers causing so many of us to ask “WTF is *that*?  I can’t wear that thing!”  Brooks Brothers’ designer Thom Brown has come up with a collection for men that has us asking the same question…

I swear this was styled by Uncle Fester Addams

This is a prime example of the major problem with “designers that so many of us reasonable human beings have with them. So many seem to live in a precious bubble where everyone tells them they’re artists and what they’re doing is “revolutionary” or whatever that they lose sight of the small things: like, practicality. Like nobody’s really going to wear padded shoulders that high. We already did that in the 1980′s. Over, done with, move on. As for this look….:

Browne apparently attended the Alexander McQueen retrospect at the Met over the summer, and afterward was frightened out of his wits by a Lily Pulitzer summer collection (pick a year, those are her colors.) He discovered those high laced lumberjack boots at that great camping supply store in Northampton, and must know that *anybody* can buy scads of brass safety pins at a little shop  in the Garment District for next to nothing!

My friend Jen, who posted a link to this pictorial on Regretsy.com wondered what the models might be thinking that they’re faces are so stern.

I’d hazard a guess that they’re concerned for their modeling careers….

Maybe if there was something *original* in the collection (well, maybe that overblown 1920′s football player look *is* original,) or if it had some kind of story to go along with it, I might be able to place it in a certain context and perhaps see it as artistic expression (but that’s a stretch.)

Sad thing, too, is that I doubt there’s even a club scene to support this kind of look these days. So much of it seems kind of retro Front 242–the black and white stuff anyway. Yet I don’t think there’s that much of a fun, drugged-out, over the top, kinda gothy-industrial, club scene, even in New York, these days. Maybe small parties, but is a guy going to shell out tons of money for an ensemble he can only wear to the premiere of the next John Waters’ film??

Seriously, honey badger! why do that when all one needs to do is hit up Salvation Army and a place where they sell scads of brass safety pins. Really! It’s not all that difficult to copy this look. Unless you’re looking for those embroidered ducks. Then again, a good sewing machine can make those for you too….

I don’t know whether to be horrified or laugh…..

Then again, if I see this stuff in Hot Topic next year, I’ll probably wish I’d been on the bandwagon.  Or not.

More Browne madness at Black Rainbow Extraordinaire magazine

Update: after posting a link to this post on Facebook, one of my friends said the shoulder pads were reminiscent of David Byrne.   Don’t know how I missed that one.   However, this jogged my memory of football motifs and I came up with the Marx Brothers’ film “Horsefeathers.”    I’m sure if I continued to parse out this collection I’d find more kitsch-y pop culture references.  If I’d seen something like this collection emerge from the streets or clubs, yes, I’d say fashion and I’d say fun.  Emerging from some guy’s crazy brain?  Not so much.  More like comedy, less like fashion.

Fashion Find: ‘Atessa’ sandal is a designer look for a fraction of $$

16 May

If you have an eye–and photographic memory–for fashion and design,  you will come across amazing finds in unusual places….

Take, for instance, my local mall (Holyoke Mall off Rt. 91).    We’re not a fashion bastion out here in the Pioneer Valley, so imagine my surprise when I spotted the Worthington ‘Atessa’ sandal at JC Penney.  It has the look of an expensive designer “cage” sandal for the fashionably frugal price of $39.99.  Here’s a quick pic I took wearing the shoes this afternoon:

So similar to what I’ve seen in Alexander McQueen, BCBG, and other collections!

They sport a 4- inch heel (ok, 3 5/16-inches.  close enough to 4) with a nice padded footbed.  All stitching is trimmed nicely so there is nothing poking on the inside.  Beautifully finished, man-made embossed snake-skin that feels and (so far) wears like leather.

Would I wear these out to an important event?  Yes, indeed.  The heel is the right height to be contemporary and non-”menopausal”, and as long as I don’t beat them to death (I can be tough on shoes) they should maintain their shape and shine.

That is, unless everyone at the event will be wearing high-end labels.  Then I might have to break the budget for a pair of Jimmy Choos.

A quick note on buying good budget-conscious fashion:  materials in budget fashions don’t need to last forever.  A good budget fashion piece should last at least to the end of the season.  Sometimes, depending on how many times it’s worn, a piece might last longer.  If stored properly, it can even be used into the beginning of the season of the following year.  Unless you are buying “fast fashion.”  In that case, you definitely get what you don’t pay for.  If it lasts through one washing, you’re lucky.