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liadt asked: Film/show with best costume design?

Great question! A good costume designer can make costumes which enhances the story and the characters. When it comes to period films/shows they also have to make clothes which fit the time frame. My personal view is that a costume designer doesn’t have an obligation to make 100% period correct costumes. But I also feel they should have to have a good understanding of the period they are doing, because without it, the costumes may look very strange. A costume designer also have to take budget and the views of producers and directors. For examples, in The White Queen the producers vetoed headgear on most female characters, because they felt a modern audience would think it looked strange. In reality a married woman would never go around with her head bare, let alone having her hair loose. Or take Versailles where the men almost never wear hats. But 17th century hats had wide brims, which makes it harder to film a scene where everyone is wearing them. (I really recommend Frock Flicks for good, funny and snarky reviews of costumes.)

Costumes are more than mere clothes too, it’s makeup and hair. Look at Regina in OUAT for example. When she is evil she wear lipstick in strong jewel tones and has perfect hair. When she is good she has lipstick in softer shades and hair that is allowed to get slightly mussed. When it looked like she had become evil again a couple of seasons ago, she kept this softer look and it turned out t had all been a scam.

I don’t think I can give you just one movie/show. To begin with we have Fanny and Alexander. It’s set in the early 1900’s and the costume designer, Marik Vos wrote a wonderful book about designing the clothes. It was the first movie where the magic of good costuming become apparent to me. Voos studied the fashion extensively, but though her costume picks up the correct shape and colours, her designs are a lot simpler with less decorations, as that would easily have looked too busy on the screen. She also worked a lot with markers to lift the sub text. For example, the mother of Fanny and Alexander is wearing a choker in all the scenes expect during her unhappy marriage to the archbishop. The choker becomes a marker for everything being safe and happy. She also wears a warm red dressing gown when she is happy, but when she isn’t, the dressing gown is in a deep burgundy. Vos also paid a lot of attention to fit. Jarl Kulle was a very slim man, but by making his costumes slightly small and giving him facial hair which visually made his face look rounder, he looks rather portly in the movie.

Penny Dreadful has wonderful costumes, designed by Gabriella Pescucci. She is a great designer, who also designed the costumes for The Borgias, La Nuit de Varennes and The Age of Innocence, among many other things. She clearly has a very good grip on 1890äs fashion, and almost always keep to t, with the notable exception of the ball scene in the second season. The gowns are gorgeous, but more fantasy than 19th century.

I’m also a big fan of the costumes of the whole of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. My guess is that they use a lot of vintage clothes in this show too- especially on Miss Lemon. Doesn’t matter, of course. The tailoring is wonderful and the 30’s feeling too. My favorite example is when Poirot, Hastings and Japp are wearing evening clothes. Men doesn’t really have much to choose from in that area, but the costume design has imbued all of them with their different personality and they manage to look quite different. And miss Lemon looks amazing. She wears several checkered suits with impeccable pattern matching. The clothes fit beautifully too. David Suchet’s Poirot is a lot tubbier than the actor, which is part discreet padding, but also tailoring, giving him clothes that strain a little and collars which is a bit too narrow.