(All about the costume designers)

Famous iconic Costume Designers and the roles they play in Fashion and Films-

The Costume designer is the person who designs costumes for a film or stage production. He or she forms an important part of the "production team," alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers. Costume design is the design of the appearance of the characters in a theater or cinema performance which potrays the real character of the actor. This usually involves designing or choosing clothing for the actors to wear, but it may also include designing masks, makeup or other unusual forms.

Costume designers  try to enhance a character's personality to potray the various social and cultural context through the way that character is dressed, while at the same time giving space to  the actor to move and perform actions and show emotions as required by the script. The designer needs to possess a keen eye , strong artistic capabilities and a thorough knowledge of fashion history.

Famous Costume Designers in Films-

Cecil Beaton - My Fair Lady, Gigi
Jenny Beavan - Howards End, Sense and Sensibility
John Bright - Howards End, Sense and Sensibility
Milena Canonero - Out of Africa, Titus  Ngila Dickson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Last Samurai
Danilo Donati - Romeo and Juliet
Edith Head - Sabrina (1954), The Sting

 Dorothy Jeakins - The Sound of Music
Jean Louis - From Here to Eternity
Orry-Kelly - Gypsy

Cecil Beaton - My Fair Lady, Gigi

Walter Plunkett - Gone with the Wind, Singin' in the Rain
Sandy Powell - The Wings of the Dove, Shakespeare in Love
Ann Roth - The English Patient
Irene Sharaff - Call Me Madam, Guys and Dolls
Theodora van Runkle - Bonnie and Clyde

Costume Designers With Profound Effect on Film

Adrian (costume designer)- The Wizard of Oz

 Adrian, was an American costume designer who became  famous for his costumes for The Wizard of Oz and other Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films of the 1930s and 1940s. During his entire career, he designed costumes for over 250 films and his screen credits usually read as "Gowns by Adrian". Adrian was hired by Rudolph Valentino's wife Natacha Rambova to design costumes for A Sainted Devil in 1924. He also designed for Rambova's film, What Price Beauty? (1925). Adrian became head costume designer for Cecil B. DeMille's independent film studio. Adrian was hired as chief costume designer at the studio. Adrian worked at MGM. In that studio during his career , Adrian designed costumes for over 200 films.

Edith Head(Costume Designer)-The Sting

Edith Head  was a known and  legendary Hollywood costume designer .She  dressed the silent film stars of the 1920s, designed the dress of the Hitchcock blondes, She made Audrey Hepburn into a princess and put Princess Grace into the frame of  GOLDEN GIRL: Edith Head won eight Oscars during her career of over 50 years as a costume designer.She was the costume designer for various well known films that  include The Heiress (1949), Samson and Delilah (1950), All About Eve (1950), A Place in  theSun (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Facts of Life (1960) and The Sting (1973).In  fashion, Head was truly competitive . Her career is emnamoured with well known  achievements. "Accentuate the positive and camouflage the rest," was the spirit behind  famous Edithism.

Patricia Field(Costume Designer)-Sex and the city

Patricia Field, is an American costume designer, stylist and fashion designer.  Field's was a well known costume designer for Sex and the City, the show became famous for the fashions it showcased. Field was nominated for 5 Emmy Awards for her work on sex and city. She was nominated for 6 Costume Designers Guild Awards. She is one out of six Honorees of the 2008 Reel Time Film Festival. She went on to return as Costume Designer for the movie "Sex and the City’ (2008) and the sequel "Sex and the City 2" (2010). Field has worked in the Asian market also by creating the fashion. She has served as a costume designer for the feature film The Devil Wears Prada, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design. 

 

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scène; a French term that originates from theater. It means to "put in the scene", literally. 


It has a broader meaning for film and refers to almost everything that goes into the composed shot, including the composition, framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set design and general visual environment, even sound because it helps explain the composition. The composition can be defined as the articulation of the cinematic space, and is precisely about space. Cutting is about time; the shot is about what occurs in a defined area of space, surrounded by the frame of the movie screen and derived by what the camera has been made to record. The mise-en-scène can be unique, closed off by the frame, or open, providing the illusion of more space around it. 


Mise-en-scène is also used when the director wishes to give an impression of the characters or situation without having to say it out verbally through the framework of spoken dialogue, and typically does not represent a realistic setting. 

Key aspects of mise en scène

Set design 

An important element of "putting in the scene" is set design—the setting of a scene and the objects (props) there in. Set design can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood of a film, or to establish aspects of the character.

Lighting 

The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting have an amazing effect on the way an image is perceived. Light and shade can emphasize on the texture, the shape, thebdistance, mood, the time of day or night, the season, the glamor; it affects the way colors are renderedband can focus attention on particular elements of the composition.

Space 

The representation of space affects the reading of a film. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, set design, effectively determining mood or relationships between elements in the story world.

Costume 

Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Using certain colors or designs, costumes in narrative cinema are used to signify characters or to make clear distinctions between characters.

Acting 

There is large amounts os historical and cultural variation in performance styles in the cinema. Early melodramatic styles, clearly indebted to the 19th century theater, gave way in Western cinema to a relatively naturalistic style.

Communication of fashion- through film

Understanding of Fashion communication in Fashion and Films      

a.    Signifier and signified

b.    Denotation and Connotation

c.    The three roles involved in communicating  through dress

d.    The three rules on how to understand the meaning of dress

e.    The three contexts involved in better understanding the meaning of dress

Fashion on the silver screen is used as a descriptive counterpart to the narrative counterpart of the film script to communicate and establish the emotional concerns of the actors/scene in a film to the audience.

Films are also a mode of communication; they communicate a story, an idea, and a concept.  Films use visual cues such as props, costumes, facial expressions, movements as well as sound cues such as the dialogues. we use costumes/fashion as a visual cue in reality.

F. I . L . M ; & what it is to fashion

A FILM, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images that are produced by the recording of images using a camera or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. Filmmaking has become an art form and industry. Films help to also reflect cultures, people and their personalities. Film is considered to be an important form of art, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating people. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using subtitles that traslate the dialogue into the language of the viewer so that people of other nationalities who speak and converse in a different language, can still watch a movie that is in a different language. This diversifies people, exposing thing to cultures and facts they had never seen or heard of before.

How is fashion then related to film?

Films are primarily visual mediums; they communicate to their audience via their sense of sight. Films are made up of visual cues such as colors, movements, facial expressions, costumes, props, etc.

Fashion has always been an intricate part of films. Without fashion, films would be incomplete. Films encompass dialogues, movements, sounds and fashion. The costumes in a film are a crucial aspect to understanding the emotional concerns of the characters in the film.

|| FASHION ||

Fashion, another word for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear or accessories. Fashion refers to anything that is in trend in look and the way of dressing of a person. The term "fashion" means clothing in general. 




So, what exactly is fashion?

Fashion is power, to begin with. It is glamour, seduction, elusiveness, beauty and style all combined together. We deal with, and face fashion everyday. Even those who don't take the effort to dress up, decide what to wear in the morning. What they choose then expresses the moods and emotions they are feeling or undergoing. It can transform images and maker a social statement. Fashion is also a line of business. A very popular and well-known business with a thriving market. A huge business where if you make it, as a designer, or an editor, all at once, you're in the spotlight. Everybody will know you and everybody will idolise you and you will soon become their inspiration.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so these pictures should shout out the meaning of fashion more than a thousand words will...

The importance of fashion in film.

Fashion has its own importance in the world. One can express their personality and emotions just by the apparel that they wear. The colors of the apparel bring out the mood of the person.
Fashion is not a new thing in the world. 
Fashion is an old thing and it is found every where and at all times.
Yes, from time to time fashion changed but it has shown its existence in all ages.
There are different eras of fashion. The sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties showed many transformations in fashion. And soon enough, like repetition, today styles from the sixties of high waisted skirts has come around again today. 
Fashions relation to film is paramount. 
Fashion, in this context is referred to as the apparel worn in films by the characters in the films.
Imagine if the actors and actresses in films were to wear black and white clothing. The emotion of the movie would not be felt. The actors and actresses would appear characterless and would appear to have no personality.
However, if the characters were to wear bright dresses, we would be able to infer that the mood of the film is a happy and joyous one. On the other hand, if they wore grey cardigans and ash black coats, we would then infer that the mood of the film is an unhappy depressing mood.
Thus, we can decipher that without fashion, film would be nowhere.
Hence, we can say film is fashion and fashion is showcased by film.