HOW TO GO
What: Hollywood Costume exhibit, presented by The Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Where: 6067 Wilshire Blvd. (in the Wilshire May Company Building), Los Angeles.
When: Through March 2
Tickets and more information: www.oscar.org/hollywoodcostume/
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“Hollywood Costume” edited by exhibit curator Deborah Nadoolman Landis, celebrates 100 years of the costume designer’s contribution to cinematic storytelling. It’s available from Abrams publishing for $55.
THIS YEAR’S ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEES FOR BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Milena Canonero for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Mark Bridges for “Inherent Vice”
Colleen Atwood for “Into the Woods”
Anna B. Sheppard for “Maleficent”
Jacqueline Durran for “Mr. Turner”
To see trailers (and costumes) for these films, check out http://oscar.go.com/mypicks
“My job is to help the girl who wears the dress become the person she’s playing on the screen.”
—-Costume designer Edith Head
While a lot of time and attention may go into creating the fashions we’ll soon be seeing on the Red Carpet, that’s nothing compared to the intellectual and creative collaboration that goes into the costumes worn on the big screen.
Just ask Deborah Nadoolman Landis.
Landis, an Academy-Award nominated costume designer who heads UCLA’s costume design department, is responsible for the costumes in popular films ranging from “Coming to America” and “Animal House” to “The Blue Brothers,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
She’s making news at the moment as the curator of the “Hollywood Costume” exhibit housed in the Los Angeles building that in 2017 is slated to become the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. If you can’t get to the exhibition, you can still enjoy the lavishly illustrated 320-page coffee table art book, “Hollywood Costume” published by the folks at Abrams and edited by Landis in connection with the show.
Landis, who is married to film director John Landis, said their family has Miami Valley connections. Her husband’s mother, Shirley Magaziner, grew up in Dayton.
Her ground-breaking exhibit, on view through March 2, was created by Landis in conjunction with The Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and explores the central role of costume design as an essential tool of cinematic storytelling. It’s not a typical clothing-on-mannequins exhibit but a high-tech explosion of sights and sounds that bring the role of the costume designer to life through live interviews, movie clips and original scripts. The emphasis here is on the importance of collaboration between costume designers, actors and directors and you leave the multimedia exhibit — or the book— with a new appreciation of the art that’s involved in bringing a character to the screen through precisely the right clothing and accessories.
Among the treasures
At the show, you get a chance to view some Oscars up close — costume designer Edith Head’s impressive array of awards welcomes visitors. As you enter the exhibit, you’re immediately surrounded by clips from famous films.
The 150 iconic costumes on display were worn by actors ranging from Charlie Chaplin (as “The Little Tramp”) and Julie Andrews (as “Mary Poppins”) to Arnold Schwarzenegger (in “Terminator”) and Julia Roberts (in “Pretty Woman.”) As fascinating as the clothes are the comments from actors and designers that accompany them.
“I’m going to have my precious baby standing over a grate, what would I give her to wear that would blow in the breeze and be fun and pretty?” costume designer William Travilla was quoted as saying. The rayon crepe dress he designed made history in “The Seven Year Itch.”
“When Audrey (Hepburn) saw Eliza’s thin green coat, drab skirts and black boater, she was so moved that she gasped,” said designer Cecil Beaton, who created the costumes for “My Fair Lady.”
The exhibit contains one of the most famous pair of shoes in the world — the original ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz.” They’re on display along with Dorothy’s blue-and-white gingham pinafore dress.
The costumes were gathered from all over the world — from archives, studios, and from private collections including the huge Debbie Reynolds collection which had been disassembled and sold.
“Studios only started archiving costumes 10 years ago,” Landis explained. “In the old days, a leading actress like Bette Davis would wear a suit in a Warner Brothers film, and the second lead would wear it in the studio’s next film, and so on. That suit would be worn until it was in shreds.”
Not really about the costumes
Landis believes the problem with the annual Oscar for Costume Design is that it’s always given for showy clothes. She insists that misses the point.
“What’s ironic is that for me, it’s not really about the clothes at all,” she explained. “When I’m moved by a film, it’s about the partnership between the costume designer and the actor, so when I’m looking at the Oscars I’m really looking at the best performances, and best picture. For a movie to be great, it means that the clothes had to be great.”
Audiences, she said, really shouldn’t notice the costumes when they’re in the theater watching a film.
“We should be in the movie,” she explains. “Not only do we go to the movies for the spectacle, we go to be on a ride, to be out of our lives. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has said that we’re really in the transportation business because we move people. If you’re really in the story, you should be a stakeholder in the outcome.”
When Landis started teaching film directors in 2001, she asked one young man who would design the costumes for his student film.
“Oh, my girlfriend, she loves to shop,” the young director responded.
“It’s not about the clothes,” Landis told him. “It’s about bringing people in your screenplay to life. We’re truth seekers. If you just want to see fashion, you can see a million on line and those models are meant to be anonymous. They’re boring; their faces are completely impassive. That’s not why we go to the movies.”
Costume design, she said, is really the polar opposite of a fashion show.
“Think about Cinderella, if she were in the ballgown from the beginning, there would be no story.”
Another students told her he couldn’t study costume design because he didn’t know how to sew.
“Can you read a screenplay?” Landis asked. “A costume design exists on a narrative and visual context simultaneously — we read a screenplay and have to fulfill all of the criteria: where it takes place, the period, the color palette.”
It’s all in the details
The exhibit points out that attention to detail is the hallmark of great costuming.
“A close up may emphasize or disclose details — a cuff, a lapel, a piece of jewelry,” we’re told. “These function as social emotional signposts for the audience.” Each costume must be right for the weather, the location, the date, the genre.
It’s interesting to learn that designer’s favorite accessory for his Mary Poppins outfit wasn’t the carpet bag or umbrella but the loose-knit mohair muffler made with knitting needles the size of drain pipes. Andrews said wearing that costume helped her bring her character to life.
Landis said it’s a mistake to think that a costume designer simply goes shopping for a contemporary costume. Even if something is purchased at a store, it often needs to be tweaked.
A case in point is the fascinating back story behind “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Costumes for the film were designed by Landis herself.
“I have been answering questions about that jacket and hat from fans all over the world,” she says about the brown cowhide jacket and hat worn by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Her Indiana Jones costume was based on Hollywood action heroes of the 1940s.
Landis used Harrison Ford’s Swiss Army knife, a steel brush and sandpaper to age the jacket so that it would look worn; a dozen hats were used in the movie for Ford and stunt men. The brims were shortened to allow the camera to see Ford’s eyes.
Mary Zophres, who designs costumes for the Coen Brothers, said her approach to costumes for Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in the “The Big Lebowski” was based on a line from the script that said the character was “terminally relaxed.”
“Everything about his costumes had to be casual and unstructured — elastic waist pants and stretchy knit shirts, Munsingwear briefs with the waistband poking out of the top of his pants. Furthermore, the Dude was a slob, with stains on his clothes — and certainly did not separate his darks from his whites when he did his laundry; this, too, was reflected in his costumes.”
Interviewing Meryl Streep
Landis personally conducted more than a dozen interviews with actors, directors and costume designers. An entire section of the exhibit is devoted to Meryl Streep whose costumes cover a wide range of films and roles. Landis said she selected Streep because audiences can depend on her to become somebody else in every film, to transform every time.
“I’d never met her before, and every answer was perfect! ” said Landis, who was quick to compliment the famous actress at the conclusion of their interview.
“‘I know you are the great Meryl Streep, but this is beyond anything I expected,” an appreciative Landis told the actress.
“Well, I did my senior thesis at Vassar on costume design. I was a costume design major,” said Streep. Landis immediately asked that the cameras be turned back on and asked Streep to repeat her close connection with costuming.
Why she created the book/exhibit
Landis, 63, said the real seeds of “Hollywood Costume” were planted when she was serving as president of the Costume Designers Guild and was shocked to learn of the discrepancy between salaries paid to production and costume designers..
“When I saw that costume designers earned 30 percent less than production designers, the only reason I could think is that we’re women,” she said. “Eighty-five percent of costume designers for movies and television are women; 85 percent of production designers are men.”
When she realized those in her own industry — not to mention the general public — didn’t appreciate and value the costume designer’s contributions, Landis determined to rectify that. Through her book and exhibit, she has accomplished that goal. The exhibit, initially pooh-poohed by the film industry in L.A. when she first proposed it, turned out to be a huge success in London at The Victoria and Albert Museum. And now, Landis is being honored by both the Costume Designers Guild and the Costume Society of America.
Deservedly so.
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