The costume vault

The 17th century is Hollywood's forgotten century. Whilst productions set in the Tudor era, or the Georgian era or even the Victorian, are aplenty, for some elusive reason, there aren't many that tackle the period between 1620 and 1700 (and the great majority of these rare movies are adaptations of the Three Musketeers ). On the other hand, when you turn your head towards the European panorama, you will find quite a larger number of movies set in the Baroque Period. One of these movies, and one of the most well-known (if only because it's shot in English instead of French or Spanish), is Vatel . Vatel (2000) is a period drama directed by Roland Joffé, the acclaimed British director of The Killing Fields (1984), The Mission (1986) and The Scarlett Letter (1996), amongst others. The movie tells the real, yet highly dramatized, story of François Vatel, and it premiered in the Official Selection of the Cannes Festival, gaining quite a lot of critical acclaim. ...

The same way that Padme's character becomes less and less relevant as the prequels progress, so do the designs. That's why most of the designs of Episode III are hardly remembered. The most iconic costumes of the characters, those that everyone remembers, are from the first two prequels. That doesn't mean that there aren't good designs in "Revenge on the Sith", because there are. The main problem is that her pregnancy, and the fact that she needs to hide it, places such limitations on the designs, that most of them end being too similar and not very interesting. Still, I'm going to continue this series of articles about the real historical influences behind the costume designs of Padme Amidala in the Star Wars prequels with a few designs from "Revenge of the Sith". The first of these designs I will be breaking down will be the "Peacock Dress". Padme was supposed to wear this somber dress during a meeting with Chancello...

This is the last Senate design for Episode II; the "velvet Senate" gown, and it's one of the most over the top designs. It's big, lavish and extravagant; it's the ultimate Senate gown. And yet, it's not even in the movie. She wears this gown during her address to the Galactic Senate after the attempt on her life. Unfortunately, this dress was cut from the final edit of the movie (you can see the scene in the DVD special editions), which is a sad fact waste of a gorgeous design. The design consist of a golden underdress with a dark blue velvet overdress that has the lapel and collar turned up. Attached to both sides of the collar, under the lapels, rests a glossy, crimped scarf-like shawl that is tied together at her mid-back with a large, beaded ribbon. The ends drift apart as they fall down. The full sleeves end at the elbow, giving way to a drawn-up sleeve of lustrous fabric. The gold underdress is decorated with needlework around the high...