Best Costume Design is all about Big Hats

by Cláudio Alves

It's always interesting to find links between otherwise disconnected pictures, whether in the context of a film festival or just the calendar year. Sometimes, the awards season can suggest interesting threads uniting films by virtue of competition-born comparison. Note that one need not be very intellectual about this, and it's always good to have some fun about the race. This year, for example, I couldn't help but notice how three of our likely nomination leaders are bedecked in exuberant millinery, with Killers of the Flower Moon taking the cake as 2023's best hat movie. Or, at the very least, 2023's most hats movie.

And, as we all know, when it comes to the Academy, "most" often trumps "best." Not that Jacqueline West is locked to win Best Costume Design for the Scorsese movie. After all, even in hat terms alone, there's stiff competition from Barbie and Oppenheimer…

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Ellen Mirojnick: From "Fatal Attraction" to "Oppenheimer"

by Cláudio Alves

There is little heroic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, whether in real life or on the big screen. Yet, in Christopher Nolan's latest, the commonplace act of getting dressed for the day is treated with the gravitas of a superhero movie's "suit up" scene. If nothing else, the moment highlights Ellen Mirojnick's work, another feather in the costume designer's cap. As with every one of the picture's elements, each choice is carefully deliberated, a negotiation of intimacy and immediacy that tries to transmit a first-person take on the period film. Two-piece tan suits rhyme with sky blue shirts, echoing the Los Alamos landscape, while a turquoise-inset silver belt buckle and porkpie-crowned cowboy-rimmed hat wink at Western iconography. It's a uniform as much as a costume, the men's "mythic look" as described by Mirojnick, who kept hats out of the other character's looks to make her protagonist stand out. 

This could be a lucky year for Mirojnick, awards-wise. Oppenheimer just might result in the designer's first Oscar nomination. Considering her vast career, it's hard to believe she's yet to be honored by the Academy…

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Costume Design ~ April Foolish Oscar Predix

on the set of THE CURRENT WARCutting right to the chase tonight. Here's what I'm predicting for Oscar's Costume Design category in this first round of punditry

• The Current War (Michael Wilkinson)
• The Greatest Showman (Ellen Mirojnick)
• Murder on the Orient Express (Alexandra Byrne)
• Victoria & Abdul (Consolata Boyle)
• Wonderstruck (Sandy Powell)

[Here's the chart]

Sandy Powell is always a good bet of course with 12 past nominations and 3 wins and she'll obviously be having a great time with the dual time frames and actressing of Julianne Moore. The other designers are less regular with the Academy but they've all been nominated with the exception of Ellen Mirojnick. But Mirojnick is no slouch having designed iconic pieces seen in films like Basic Instinct, Showgirls, and recently she won the Emmy for Soderbergh's Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra. She's got one of the year's (presumably) showiest gigs : Hugh Jackman's PT Barnum musical The Greatest Showman.

Ali Fasal stars opposite Dame Judi Dench in VICTORIA AND ABDUL

But that's just scratching the surface of what will surely be lots of fine threads in the movies this year from many talented designers. After the jump, a Beauty Break of Costume Design possibilities this year...

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