The costume vault

The dressmaker , despite its many flaws, is a fascinating movie to look at. And what makes it particularly interesting for me, is that it's a movie where the Costume Design happens to be what drives most of the visual narrative of the story. Last week I had a look at Tilly's costume (by Margot Wilson) and how these define her and her arc throughout the movie, but, no matter how impressive Tilly's wardrobe is, it's only one half of the picture. It's Marion Boyce's work on the townsfolk around our main character that completes this mesmerizing ensemble. Because of it, I feel it would be unfair to ignore this other half and therefore chose to divide this into two parts in order to better develop each of the sides. And so, without further ado, let's dive into the other half of this equation. DUNGATAR AND THE MAKEOVER FEVER Dungatar is a fictional run-down street of houses in the middle of the Australian outback that tries to disguise itself as a tow...

2015's The Dressmaker is the wet dream of any costume lover in all of its 120 minutes of runtime. The Aussie film directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse is the adaptation of the Rosalie Ham's homonymous novel. After quite an impressive run in the Festival Circuit (it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival) and garnishing numerous nominations and wins worldwide, it finally got a theatrical release, becoming a box office success and the 11th highest-grossing film of all time in its home country. So there certainly was a lot of hype around it when I finally got to see it and had a lot of expectations to live up to. ABOUT THE MOVIE So, is the movie actually that good? ... Sort of? Well, it's complicated. That's my official review tagline: it's complicated . The thing is; the movie has a ton of problems of all sorts. A lot of it doesn't work, but what does work, works really well. Let's start with the negatives. First of all, the movie is a t...

Carol , a movie based on Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt , shows us exactly where The Danish Girl failed. The movie, directed masterfully by Todd Haynes, is the perfect mix between classical filmmaking and breakthrough storytelling. It's not afraid to take risks. This love story between two women (an issue that, unfortunately, is still either ignored or fetishized in the media) takes the canons of the classical Hollywood melodrama and subverts them masterfully as we follow the coming of age story of young Therese through her love affair with Carol. Haynes did something very similar with also acclaimed Far From Heaven (2002) which dealt with homosexuality and racial issues. Filled with an incredible sense of beauty and subtlety, the movie accompanies you through a highly emotional drama where the only villain is the prejudices of the world our characters live in (which is also our world and our prejudices to this day). The movie was robbed of a Best ...