14 days til Oscar - Costume Design Lists!

Photography by Brigitte Lacombe

With 14 days until Oscar we're thinking about Queen Sandy Powell, now with a towering 14 nominations for costume design via her double nod this year for Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite.  We interviewed her in the year of Carol and Cinderella (2015), also a double nominated year. The only time she's ever won while double nominated was the first time...

When her work on Shakespeare in Love (1998) beat her still jawdropping work in Velvet Goldmine . Oscar is such a sucker for the Elizabethan era.

Her 14 nominations chronologically

 

1. Orlando (1992)
2. The Wings of the Dove (1997)
3. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
4. Shakespeare in Love (1998) ★
5. Gangs of New York (2002)
6. The Aviator (2004) ★
7. Mrs Henderson Presents (2005)
8. The Young Victoria (2009) ★
9. The Tempest (2010)
10. Hugo (2011)
11. Cinderella (2015)
12. Carol (2015)
13. The Favourite (2018)
14. Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Her 14 best, ranked

 

1. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
2. Far From Heaven (2002) - not Oscar nominated
3. Orlando (1992)
4. The Aviator (2004)
5. Carol (2015)
6. The Favourite (2018)
7. The Wings of the Dove (1997)
8. Cinderella (2015)
9. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
10. Interview with the Vampire (1994) - not Oscar nominated
11. Gangs of New York (2002)
12. Rob Roy (1995) - not Oscar nominated
13. Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
14. The End of the Affair (1999) - not Oscar nominated

Oscar's 14 All Time Favourite Costume Designers
Arrows indicate that they're still alive and working. Unless otherwise noted.

Oscar's most beloved costume designer Edith Head  

1. Edith Head (35 nominations / 8 wins)
2. Charles Le Maire (16/3)
3. Irene Sharaff (15/5)
4. 🔺Sandy Powell (14/3) Nominated twice this year, 58 years old
5. Jean Louis (14/1) 
6. 🔺Colleen Atwood (12/4)
   Most recent nom/win Fantastic Beasts, 70 years old
7. Dorothy Jeakins (12/3)
8. 🔺Jenny Beavan (10/2)
   Most recent nom/win Mad Max Fury Road, 68 years old
9. [tied for 8th] Helen Rose (10/2)
10. Walter Plunkett (10/1)
11. [tied for 10th] Bill Thomas (10/1)
12. 🔺Milena Canonero (9/4)
    Most recent nom/win Grand Budapest Hotel, 73 years old. Next up for Canonero: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch
13. 🔺Albert Wolsky (7/2)
    Most recent nom Revolutionary Road, 88 years old. Next up for Wolsky: sci-fi drama Ad Astra with Brad Pitt and the thriller The Woman in the Window  with Amy Adams, both coming out this year.
14. 🔺Anthony Powell (6/3)
    Most recent nom 102 Dalmatians, - 83 years old. Retired since 2006, though, so he won't be moving up the chart unless someone woos him out of retirement.

Powell, Atwood, Beavan, and Canonero's records are particularly impressive when you realize that their deceased counterparts in Oscar glory had the advantage of two costume design categories (the category was created in 1948 and originally was two separate competitions whether the film was in black and white or in color. There were two chances to win and two to be nominated in until 1967 when we reached our now familiar 5 nominees only in costume design, no matter the kind of movie)

Patricia Norris with her lifetime achievement from the Costume Guild in 2007

Who is the Peter O'Toole / Deborah Kerr of this category?
The record for most nominations without a competitive win is Patricia Norris with 6. She died three years ago after a lengthy career that stretched from Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) through 12 Years a Slave (2013) for which we interviewed her. Just behind her was the Italian designer Piero Tosi with 5 nominations (who is still alive) but they gave him an Honorary four years ago. 

The currently living/working designer with the most nominations without ever winning we think it's a multiple tie between several people with three-nominations including Ruth E Carter (Black Panther) and Mary Zophres (Ballad of Buster Scruggs) who are both in the mix this year.

SO BACK TO THE CURRENT COMPETITION

If you haven't yet voted on the Costume Design Oscar poll, please do that!  Sandy Powell has tough very worthy Oscar competition from Ruth E Carter for Black Panther. Powell x 2 and Carter are the only Oscar transfers in our own film bitch awards in that category

The great Ruth E Carter

Next up for Ruth E Carter: The Netflix biopic Dolemite is My Name  from Craig Brewer (Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow) starring Eddie Murphy as an actor in the 1970s who assumed an iconic pimp role named "Dolemite"

Next up for Sandy Powell: Martin Scorsese's Netflix historical epic The Irishman (2019), currently in post-production. Her project after that, currently filming, the biopic The Glorias: Life on the Road (2020) in which Lulu Wilson (age 13), Alicia Vikander (age 30) and Julianne Moore (age 58) will all play feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Which means her schedule frees up soon. What wonders await us next?

Comments

[Tony C.]

Janet Patterson unfortunately died in 2016.

[/3rtful]

I'm not confident in Carter winning this category. Powell's work on The Favourite shapes the tone of the movie alongside the performances and cinematography.

[NATHANIEL R]

Tony --- ack. right you are. fixed

[Mareko]

"I already have two of these" doesn't need another win. Give the Oscar to Ruth E. Carter.

P.S. Justice for the never-nominated Reneé Ehrlich Kalfus (A Simple Favor, Hidden Figures, The Cider House Rules, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, etc.).

[Dg]

It's time Sandy got her 4th.

[Suzanne]

Sandy Powell is not Edith Head. Four Oscars in 20 years is excessive when so many are unrewarded.

[thevoid99]

Give it to Ruth E. Carter. Her work in Black Panther just raised the bar of what costume design could be for big-time superhero blockbuster films.

[Manuel]

Though I really like Sandy Powell, no one, I mean NO ONE can touch the genius of Eiko Ishioka. Take a look at her work in:

Bram Stokers Dracula
The Cell
The Fall
Immortals
Mirror Mirror

[Jaragon]

"Far From Heaven" was not nominated for costume design? That film is a true modern classic

[Murtada Elfadl]

so Sandy is not costuming the new Todd haynes that's currently shooting. I wonder who is? IMDB is not updated. Does anyone know?

[Eric]

Such wonderful work. If it were up to me, Sandy would have Oscars for Orlando, The Wings of the Dove, Velvet Goldmine, Carol, and The Favourite.

She, Canonero, and the glorious Ann Roth are my three favorites.

[Soshua]

I want Ruth to win because I liked the history behind the costumes of Black Panther. So much African history that makes 😍

I am not a Black Panther fan (and I think they only nominated him because TDK Trilogy and Logan didn't get there, and if they did, no superhero movie would achieve that in the future years), but if they win Costume I will be ok with that.

But if I had to vote, Sandy would win for The Favourite. My Favourite costumes of the year.

[Rebecca]

I watched "Orlando" obsessively as a youth, but I really want Carter to win this.