For costume designer Julie Weiss, “you are what you
wear” is no mere adage; it’s a fact of life.
“Look around. Some of us wear our families and our
families’ past; some steal stories from other people and wear
them as their own,” said Weiss, who designed the costumes for
“Frida,” inspired by Frida Kahlo’s vivid
paintings.
“A costume is a very special moment of dress; it tells a
story,” Weiss said.
“Frida” is just one of 28 films whose costumes will
be on display at the 11th Annual “Art of Motion Picture
Costume Design” exhibition, which starts today at the Fashion
Institute of Design & Merchandising in downtown Los Angeles.
Free to the public, the FIDM gallery features the finest moments of
color and drama in films released in 2002, from the lavender scarf
in “Far From Heaven” to the sparkling platform shoes
from “Austin Powers in Goldmember.”
“There hadn’t been an exhibit in 10 years before we
started,” said curator Kevin Jones. “Hollywood is right
over the hill from us, and it’s very important for us to
showcase designs from Hollywood.”
Weiss, a Hollywood designer whose credits include
“American Beauty” and “12 Monkeys,” tapped
numerous resources in the United States for “Frida” but
also took inspiration directly from Kahlo’s native
Mexico.
“I designed everywhere I could find a piece of
fabric,” Weiss said. “But you also go to Mexico, and
there’s a woman on the street wearing the most beautiful
Tehuana top. So you stop by and say, “˜Excuse me, can you come
here? We’re filming something; do you have more of
these?’ Everyone helped.”
While Weiss and others continue the traditional
sketch-and-swatch approach, the imminent future of costume design
comes in the form of a tiny storybook mouse: Stuart Little.
“He has the worst body I’ve ever dressed,”
said Mona May, FIDM alumna and designer for “Stuart Little
2.” “No neck, no shoulders, a big belly and very very
short legs. To make him look handsome was quite a feat.”
To dress Stuart Little and Margalo the canary, May used advanced
costuming technology, scanning flat patterns into a 3-D dressing
program, and designing Stuart-scaled fabrics with the help of a
mathematical cloth specialist. It was a meticulous challenge for
May, taking over 500 drawings and sketches to fully dress the
miniature characters.
“Every detail had to be given: how far down the T-shirt
would go, how big the zipper would be,” said May, who is best
known for her Rodeo Drive-inspired work on “Clueless.”
“We had to give so much documentation to really get it right,
so it looks completely real.”
The excitement for the exhibition is growing now that the
Academy Award nominations have been announced. FIDM is proud to
have costumes from last year’s Oscar winner, “Moulin
Rouge!” as well as from all five of this year’s Oscar
nominees for Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design: Colleen
Atwood for “Chicago”; Sandy Powell for “Gangs of
New York”; Ann Roth for “The Hours”; Anna
Sheppard for “The Pianist”; and Weiss for
“Frida,” for whom it was a welcome surprise.
“The honor of “˜Frida’ was working on
“˜Frida,'” said Weiss, who was a visiting
professor at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television a
few years ago. “Anything that comes after that is a wave of
comfort.”
While Oscar recognizes a select few every year, film costume
design rarely gets the spotlight as a vital element of moviemaking;
it is usually dominated by the on-screen talent or the visual
effects.
“I think we get very overlooked,” said May.
“You see the actors and their clothes more than the sets
behind them. We work with the actors and their characters; we
enhance their beauty and hide imperfections. I think it’s a
very important role.”
The relative obscurity of film costume design makes the FIDM
gallery all the more valuable for the designers. It allows them to
feature their work outside the films themselves, all together in
one exhibit, fostering a small, yet vital creative force that
continues to advance their craft.
“These designers are working on films constantly and often
more than one film at a time,” Jones said. “Every
single aspect, every single detail that actors or extras wear has
to be accounted for. That is just astounding.”