Costume Design Oscar Nominations 2013

It's that time of year again- Oscar nominations!

And the nominees for Best Costume Design are-

Anna Karenina by Jacqueline Durran

Les Misérables by Paco Delgado

Lincoln by Joanna Johnston

Mirror Mirror by Eiko Ishioka

Snow White and the Huntsman by Colleen Atwood

All the designs this year are so fantastic, it's bound to be really tough choosing a winner. I feel like I want Les Misérables to win as I absolutely adored the film, but I don't think the costumes were the best from this year. I think that Anna Karenina deserves the Oscar this year as the designs were so stylish and beautiful. Jacqueline Durran was blessed however with having to design for Keira Knightly- she could be dressed in a bin liner and make it look Oscar worthy!

Who do you think designed the best costumes this year?

New Year Freebie!

So, the Vintage Elle Blog team are still having some technical difficulties with posting pictures. :-( We have lots of great posts planned and will hopefully be up and running again asap!

 

For now here is a new year present for you all. These 2 images below are my 2 favourite wallpaper tiles. They line up perfectly to create fabulous vintage backgrounds to the size you want. I use these all the time as wallpaper, for scrapbooking, scaled models, backgrounds for websites and to mount pictures on. You can even change the colours in Photoshop to give you even more versatility.

I'd love to see what fun things you use these for. Comment with a link or email to amy(at)amycartwright(dot)co(dot)uk :-)

 

Dorothy's Ruby Slippers!

Here at the Vintage Elle Studio we are kind of obsessed with the Ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz (and when I say obsessed I mean majorly obsessed!) They are probably the most famous shoes that have ever exsisted. That is why, when creating our latest collection of sparkly shoes they were the first thing we thought of.

 

As they were such a major part of the Wizard of Oz several pairs of Ruby Slippers were made. 5 pairs are known to exist but there possibly were even more. In the original book 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy's shoes were originally silver. Legend has it that the film producers wanted to take full advantage of the new technicolor technology and decided to make them red... and thank goodness they did! I really don't feel that Dorothy clicking her boring silver heels saying, "there's no place like home" would have had quite the same effect.

 

Aren't they pretty!

It is well known that during the Hollywood Golden Age, Film studios were really careless with their props and costumes. Staff often took advantage of this and took many souveniers home to build up their own collections. In 1970 a costumer called Kent Warner was rummaging around in the MGM basement finding bits of costume to auction off. He came across the stash of Ruby Slippers, which had just been forgotten about. He auctioned them off, keeping the best pair for himself. Lady Gaga even owns a pair now...

...And Debbie Reynolds owns the pointy toed witch version.

It is now believed that Judy Garland only actually wore one of the pairs and they can be found on display at the National Museum of American History. One of the copies is currently on display at the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the V&A in London and I can't wait to get to see them! Out of all the fabulous costumes that have ever been designed, they were chosen to go on the official book cover! (My boyfriend just gaeme this book as an early Christmas present and I definitely recommend it)

I for one absolutely love this style of shoe. They are so elegant and ladylike, without having a crippling 4 inch heel. This is why we were so inspired to add our own pair to the Vintage Elle upcycled shoe collection. If you take a visit to our Etsy store you could own your very own pair of Ruby Slippers for a lot less than the originals which last sold for $666,000. How exciting! https://www.etsy.com/listing/118121324/ruby-slippers-size-5-handmade

Vintage Elle - Now selling on Etsy!

So I did have an amazing post lined up today on 1920s fashion, but I became a bit side tracked by setting up Vintage Elle's first Etsy store. It's early days yet and it will take me a while to photograph everything, but at least it is now up and running! At the moment I have listed some limited edition prints of some of my drawings and a couple of original canvas paintings. Exciting stuff! You can find my shop at www.etsy.com/shop/VintageElleStudio.

Here's a sneaky peak of what's on offer. Limited Edition prints of my costume designs for Cinderella. Signed, numbered and dated by myself.

The original artwork for these paintings (Although it will be very difficult for me to let them go!)

 AND I am introducing a new illustration entitled 'Vanity'

I will be uploading many more handmade, vintage inspired wares over the next month, so keep your eye on it. New products also include my new line of upcycled vintage glitter shoes! Once I've got photos. Lets just say that taking photos yourself, of shoes that are on your own feet, is proving pretty tricky. Here's a quick preview.

 

Let me know if there is anything in particular that you'd like to see in my shop.

 

...And rest assured that the really exciting post on 1920s fashion will still happen within the next week!

The Government Inspector

"Designer Amy Cartwright had created a multi-faceted set of exposed slatted walls with portraits of the Tsar, odd furniture and a general feeling of disarray." (NWN)

 

 

I have just finished designing The Government Inspector at The Watermill Theatre. It is such a unique venue and I always love working there. It's a tiny theatre, placed in the middle of nowhere, but they always create such fantastic productions. Previous shows have transferred to the West End, Broadway and have toured around the world!

 

I met with the director Seamus Allen for an interview in July and was obviously over the moon when he asked me to design it. I originally trained as a Theatre Designer, but have found myself mostly designing film in recent times. It's such a joy to get stuck into a play design again. The production was for the Theatre's Young Company, which meant that we didn't have the biggest budget in the world to play with, but I am amazed that with hardwork from everyone we managed to get everything exactly how I had envisaged it.

 

The design premise was that this play is set within a poor town in the middle of a great depression. The authorities were corrupt and the poor were really poor. We decided that the town had once probably been quite rich, then lost it's wealth, then gained a bit of money again, so they started to rennovate the town, then lost the money again. That's a long backstory, but I acheived this by having dusty paint pots lying around as if they had just been left there during the work. Here is the picture that served as my main inspiration fot the set and which triggered my design. I found it here.

 

I was so happy when I found this picture as it showed just what Seamus and I had been talking about. We were really keen for this show to be really colourful, but quite faded. Although the concept might seem quite serious, it is a comedy afterall!

 

Here are some of the production stills taken by Philip Tull of the final set.

 

The costumes were an absolute joy to put together. The wardrobe team at the Watermill were fantastic. After spending about 4 hours trawling through their costume store we amazingly managed to find most of what we needed. The idea behind the costume was that the characters wanted to make themselves look as rich and important as possible, but without the funds to buy any fancy clothes. They have pieced together their outfits the best they could manage, even though a lot of it doesn't quite match. The Governor particular fancies himself as a bit of a military general and has created himself (what he thinks is) a military looking jacket with a plain blazer with lots of medals and badges stuck over it.

All in all the play was a great success. It had a short run of 4 nights, but completely sold out! The audience seemed to love it and laughed the whole way through. I am so pleased to have been involved with this and now I can't wait to design another play again.

Across the Universe

It's been a while since I have loved a film so much, that i can't stop watching it. I absolutely adored this film directed by Julie Taymor. Across the Universe isn't just a film; it is a work of art. I sometimes wish that i could get inside Taymor's head for just a minute to see all the creativity and ideas she has brewing in there.

This is a musical centred around songs of The Beatles starring Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood and Joe Anderson, who were all unknowns at the time. I think one of the reasons it works so well is that it doesn't try to compete with the music of the Fantastic Four, but turns them in to something completely different. Sometimes the singing does sound a bit auto-tuned, but everything else is so well done i can forget about it.

This film really does have it all. Some scenes are elaborate like old Hollywood musical numbers, some are gritty and real, some are romantic and others are just plain crazy. As ever, Taymor is engagingly experimental using puppets, illustration and SFX to dramatise the story. My favourite scene (maybe of all time?) is Strawberry Fields Forever.
I love how they have projected different scenes over the action to blend the whole story together. The Strawberry symbol is amazing. I am so close to pinning a load of bleeding strawberrys to my kitchen wall. I think i'll just have to settle for recreating the strawberry painting though.

Across the Universe was nominated for the Best Costume Design Oscar in 2007 and I for one think it thoroughly deserved it.

Behind all the colours and craziness lies a beautiful love story and a deep and meaningful message. War really is such a waste of life.

I was particularly drawn in by Joe Anderson's stirling performance as Max. I really felt his journey- staring out as an enigmatic Princeton dropout, to having all of his charisma sucked out of him by the war.

There is so much in this film that i can see why you would either love it or hate it. The plot sometimes goes off on crazy tandems and not all of it makes sense. There are a few scenes that don't work quite as well and seem a bit cheesey (e.g. Dear Prudence) but all in all this film has firmly established itself in my top 10 movies of all time.  It is a designers absolute dream to watch. I implore all of you to buy it!

I are some stills of the film. There are so many amazing images i have just decided to include all of them I hope you enjoy looking at them.