More Snow White

A while back I posted images from the two new Snow White films: Snow White and Snow White and the Hunstman. Here are more images from the first Snow White that have just been release.

Waiting for Mad Men Part 2: Lover Come Back.

Imagine Mad Med as a Rom Com. That's basically what you get with Lover Come Back.

Rock Hudson plays a pseudo-Don Draper ad man who gets accounts by taking clients boozing and to girlie shows. Doris Day is a perkier, better dressed Peggy Olson who is also in advertising but believes that hard work and letting the ideas speak for themselves. Of course in true romantic comedy form, hijinks ensue and they fall in love.

Doris Day's costumes are stunning. Lots of beautiful wiggle-skirted dresses with 3/4 length sleeved jackets in contrasting color and a mightily impressive hat collection. I mean, she may be an ad exec but she's also a wholesome, warm-hearted girl next door! And Rock Hudson in his slim grey suits is never hard on the eyes.

Added bonus: There's also a buxom red-head that could be a Joan, a bumbling boss that's a Woody Allen-esque Roger Sterling and an obnoxiously Southern client that is easily the owner of Lucky Strike.

Basically, Lover Come Back is Mad Men with this as the opening credits:

{Mad Men Opening Titles Re-Design from Paul Rogers on Vimeo}.

Lover Come Back (1961)

Starring: Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall

Costume Designer: Irene

W.E. - A new Windsor film.

{Images via Vanity Fair }

There is a gorgeous fashion editorial in the new Vanity Fair featuring the costumes from the film W.E. about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The costumes designer is Arianne Phillips, whose past work includes the fabulous films A Single Man, Walk the Line and Hedwig and the Angry Itch. When I saw these images I literelly gasped.

W.E. is about a modern day woman who is obsessed with the love story of Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson. The film switches between the 1930s and present day. Interestingly enough, this film is Madonna's directorial debut.

Say what you want about whose directing it, these costumes are so spot on and instantly capture the characters just in these photographs that I feel pretty confident the film will have just as much depth. It comes out in December and I already am looking forward to seeing it!

{Film still via Fashionista }

INSPIRATION: Steampunk in film.

{Sketch by Hannah Greene }

I'll post the rest of my drawings from a steampunk figure drawing session I went to last week a little later. For now here's a collection of costumes from films that go along with that theme.

These films are actually more period-with-a-twist or fantasy than true steampunk, but that's what I really look to for inspiration when I'm in the mood for some industrial era nostalgia.

BE WARNED: Not all of these films are good (I'm looking at you, Wild Wild West). However, they're fun and definitely worth watching for the absolutely fabulous costume and production design.

P.S. 

I purposely did NOT include The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

No one should ever be subjected to sit through that movie, 

no matter how good it looks.

Wild Wild West (1999)

Costume Designer: Deborah L. Scott

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood

 

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Costume Designer: Norman Martien

Atlantis (2001)

Costumes & Wardrobe Department: Akeime Mitterlehner & Alison M. Schmidt 

 

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood

Waiting for Mad Men, Part 1: The Best of Everything.

Starting to get stir-crazy while waiting for the next season of Mad Men. August is usually when the show premieres, but thanks to pesky budget negotiation problems, it now won't be on air until NEXT MARCH.

I've already re-watched all the past seasons and have now moved on to finding films to help fill the void until The Greatest Show On Earth is on again.

The Best of Everything (1959)
Stars: Joan Crawford, Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd & Suzy Parker
Costume Designer: Adele Palmer

This is as close to Mad Men as you can get. It follows the women who work in a publishing agency on Madison Avenue. It's the business world from Peggy's point of view and is full of pre-feminist issues. My particular favorite is when the girls who are roommates sit around and talk about how they all worry about being unmarried past the age of 24. The horror!

The costumes are as lovely as Janie Bryant's designs in Mad Men. It's not a fashion parade but there is a sharp understated elegance to the whole look of the film. It's how I imagine women in the office would actually dress; full of well-tailored skirt suits in muted tones and never without gloves and a hat when you're outdoors.

If you need a Mad Men fix, this film should hold you over for a little while.

A double dosage.

{Annie Liebovitz's version of Snow White. Check out all of her Disney Dream Portraits }

Who knew Snow White was so popular? In the spirit of No Strings Attached/Friends With Benefits, Armageddon/Deep Impact and Bug's Life/Antz there are two movies about Snow White coming out right around the same time next year. Both films just released promo shots of actor's in their costumes and it seems the films are at least going in different directions.

First up is The Brothers Grimm: Snow White starring Lily Collins and Julia Roberts. At first glance it looks pretty darn sugar coated with the poofy floral gown and all the pastels. But the director Tarsem Singh's past films were The Fall and The Cell so you can bet it's going to be trippy! Eiko Ishioka, the costume designer, also worked on those films as well as Cirque de Soleil. Ooooooh, maybe the dwarfs will be acrobats?

{Image via Entertainment Weekly }

And then there is Snow White and the Huntsman. This version is apparently the darker, angst ridden version. Snow White dons armor and the Queen is doing her best Malificent impression. Personally I'm much more of a fan of darker slightly twisted stories but I just saw that wretched Red Riding Hood so I 'm now a little skeptical of this version. God, that was the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Even Gary Goldman couldn't make it watchable.

It's the director Rupert Sander's first film but the costume designer is Colleen Atwood! Colleen designs for Tim Burton, but she also did Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. Needless to say she's one of my favorite designers alongside Mary Zophres and Jenny Beavan. Fun Fact: I met her once and completely geeked out.

James Franco? Is that you?!

You should enlarge this! Check out the feathered collar and whatever wonderful fabric the gown in made out of. Oh and the fingers!

"Yeah. We graduated high school. How totally amazing."

Movie: Ghost World

Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

In no particular order, my favorite costumes from a movie for the deadpan little Enid voice inside all of us.