The Costume Design Guild has spoken! As with all guild awards... it's a combination of "Really?" and interesting "Oh, yeah!" choices.
Clothes Horse Royals in "W.E." via Arianne Phillips
PERIOD FILMS
Mark Bridges for The Artist
Michael O'Connor for Jane Eyre
Sharen Davis for The Help
Sandy Powell for Hugo
Arianne Phillips for W.E.
Good news: I have an interview coming up with Arianne Phillips, who is one of my heroes. And not just because she's worked with Madonna for 15 years or so.
Notable Omissions: Anonymous, Captain America (unless they considered it a fantasy), My Week With Marilyn, A Dangerous Method, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Oscar transferrence? The costume designers within the Academy, a much smaller number than votes on the guild awards, tend to prefer period work to other types of work so you could theoretically see all of these nominees repeat at Oscar, though Phillips is certainly most vulnerable as her movie is probably the least seen of these. Still royalty porn goes a long way with Oscar voters and Andrea Riseborough looks like she's wearing the entire budget of the film.
FANTASY FILMS
Jany Temime for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Penny Rose for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Cindy Evans for Red Riding Hood
Alexandra Byrne for Thor
Sammy Sheldon for X-Men: First Class
Oscar transferrence? I'm guessing the best bet here is Alexandra Byrne for Thor.
Superheroes!: Interesting to see the fantasy category overtaken by superheroes (and yes I include Harry Potter there). I wonder if they categorized Captain America here or in "period"? Either way it didn't manage a nomination.
Strangest nods: Hasn't the Harry Potter cast been wearing essentially the sameish robes for the entire franchise? I have not seen Red Riding Hood so my apologies to Cindy Evans but I found that pink dress with red coat so painful to look at in tandem (even in the space of a 2 minute trailer!) that my face lost a little of its color reading this nomination. Maybe every other costume in the movie is enticing?
CONTEMPORARY FILMS
Leesa Evans and Christine Wada for Bridesmaids
Wendy Chuck for The Descendants
Erin Benach for Drive
Trish Summerville for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Manon Rasmussen for Melancholia
Yay! We figured the scorpion jacket would get its due here but it's fun to see my double feature of bridal depression nominated.
Oscar transferrence? Unfortunately that only happens for contemporary films when the entire movie is about the clothes (see The Devil Wears Prada).
Sigh. REALLY?: The contemporary category is where you often see guilds failing to live up to their duties as awards organization and just grab at whichever FYC screeners they're loving. No offense to Wendy Chuck who has done fun work on several contemporary pictures, not just Payne's movies, but apart from Clooney's hilarious run in inappropriate shoes the costumes aren't contributing a fifth as much to the success of The Descendants (consider it this year's Slumdog Millionaire with bizarre guild triumphs) as say the costumes of Young Adult, Beginners, Shame, Crazy Stupid Love, The Iron Lady (unless they considered that "period"), Martha Marcy May Marlene or The Skin I Live In are to their movies. The contemporary categories are almost always where you see the limits of guild imagination when it comes to defining "awards worthy". It's a fancy way of saying "WE LIKE THIS MOVIE A WHOLE LOT!"
How do you like these nominations and where would your votes go?