FYC: A Best Costume Design Celebration

by Cláudio Alves

PASSAGES should earn Khadija Zeggaï an Oscar nomination.

As the voting for the 96th Academy Award nominations continues, there's a possibility that we'll get a repeat of 2019 in Best Costume Design. Though not disastrous, that season saw the lineup comprised exclusively of Best Picture nominees – a sad sight for a race where, once upon a time, brilliant work could be rewarded regardless of a film's general buzz. Maybe Wonka, The Color Purple, or Napoleon will stop that from happening, but it'll still result in a fairly expected ballot. Why not look elsewhere to some of the year's underrated gems? Please, Costume Branch, remember you represent the category of I Am Love, Bright Star, Marie Antoinette, and many others. 

I've already made the case for La Chimera, Passages, and Pain Hustlers, so I won't repeat it. Still, even with those out of the way, there's plenty to celebrate from 2023 cinema. Here are ten Oscar-eligible achievements in costume design…

Click to read more ...

Interview: on the Ghostly Costume Design of "The Beguiled"

 by Nathaniel R

The costume designer Stacey Battat has, to date, worked mostly in female-oriented contemporary indies. That's quite a perfect niche to build a design career from. Or at least it is when the women who've visually helped define your early work are such stylish talented icons themselves. Battat first made her mark on two Parker Posey features in the late Aughts (Broken English, Happy Tears). Soon after she was deep in the Julianne Moore business (Still Alice, Freeheld, What Maisie Knew). Other credits include The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her and Him and Mozart in the Jungle but it's been her partnership with writer/director Sofia Coppola that's come to define her young career.

The two began working together on the LA dreamy Somewhere (2010). Battat proved invaluable to all the fashiongasms of Coppola's arguably most underrated feature The Bling Ring (2013). Then came an atypical challenge: a forgotten girls school deep in the Civil War era.

I spoke with Battat recently by phone to talk about one of the most visually striking films this past year, The Beguiled, and what she brought to it. Our interview, edited for clarity and length follows...

Click to read more ...