Film Articles
Beyond the Red Carpet: Costume Design at the 2019 Oscars
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Red-carpet fashion and costume design serve different purposes. One presents a person at an event; the other helps create a character inside a story. The 2019 Academy Awards provide a useful starting point for looking at that craft, with nominations recognizing work in films released in 2018.
Black Panther: clothing helps build a world
Ruth E. Carter won the costume-design Oscar for Black Panther. In its account of her work, the Academy describes the combination of traditional influences and futuristic design, including 3D-printed accessories. The important viewing question is how those choices make a fictional society feel internally coherent.
Watch for visual relationships between characters before anyone explains their loyalties. A repeated color, shape or material can suggest a connection; a conspicuous difference can mark a change in status or allegiance. Try noticing those signals without pausing to identify every garment.
Two Sandy Powell nominations, two different worlds
Sandy Powell was nominated for both The Favourite and Mary Poppins Returns. Putting those credits side by side makes a good argument against treating costume design as a single recognizable “look.” A designer’s task changes with the story.
Choose a scene from each film and ask what a costume allows the actor to do. Does it emphasize a gesture, constrain movement, separate a character from the surroundings or help them disappear into a group? The question is more revealing than deciding which outfit you would personally wear.
Look beyond the winner
The other nominees were Mary Zophres for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Alexandra Byrne for Mary Queen of Scots. An awards shortlist is a route into further viewing, not a final ranking of everything worthwhile that year.
On your next movie night, follow one character’s clothing from the beginning to the end. Note a change, then ask whether it accompanies an actual change in behavior. Sometimes the revealing detail is that the clothes stay the same while the person no longer fits the role.
Browse Drama or Musicals for current DVD choices. The films discussed here are examples of costume craft; each product listing establishes what is available to order.