The costume vault

Colonialism is a term often thrown around whenever we westerners adapt or reimagine tales and stories of other cultures; be it Asia or Africa. Most of these adaptations tend to impose a very western view on the source material and, therefore, "colonize it". But it's very rare to talk about this process in the inverse direction. 2004's adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel; Vanity Fair is one of those rare instances where an oriental filmmaker (Mira Nair in this case) colonizes a western work, adapting it through the scope and views of an Indian reader. The relation between England and India has always been a rocky one and through a long process of colonization spanning from the 18th century to the mid-20th century, India has been forced to adopt English literature. Most schools study it even more than their own. This has translated into a lot of loose adaptations in Bollywood cinema. For instance; the amount of their films that use the Rome...

There is a reason why I usually do not review movies from the "golden age" of Hollywood (which means any movie prior to the 1970s), and that is because back then they cared even less about historical accuracy in costuming than nowadays, which is saying a lot. Because of this, most of the "historical" movies generally ignored the period and just did whatever was fashionable at the time with a spice of the supposed period. This is something that usually makes me laugh, rather than angry, because it results in very funny outfits (peplums particularly created a lot of funny imaginary). And Cleopatra , 1963's epic about the Egyptian queen, was for most of my childhood one of those movies. I knew the costumes were not accurate, but they fascinated me anyways in their ridiculousness. That is until I heard that the movie had won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design, the same year that " Il Gattopardo  was nominated for Best Costume Design. A...