SPOTLIGHT
COSTUMES
The UK’s costume designers and costume houses are now central
to the look of international feature films and TV shows across all
genres, thanks to their training and talent.
Sarah Cooper
reports.
Dressed for
SUCCESS
T
he UK has long been the premier desti-
nation for filmmakers looking for
authentic period costumes and the
experts to provide them. Yet the country’s cos-
tume designers are increasingly being recog-
nised for their work across all manner of genres,
from epic fantasy dramas such as
Game of
Thrones
to sleekmodern thrillers like
ExMachina
.
And when London-born designer Jenny Bea-
van stepped up to collect her Oscar for best
costume design in February 2016, it was for her
dazzlingly original costumes on George Miller’s
post-apocalyptic action epic
Mad Max: Fury
Road.
“It is so different to the films I’m per-
ceived for, and I’d always hankered after some-
thing futuristic so I was thrilled to be given the
chance to work on it,” explains Beavan, who
previously won an Oscar for her period crea-
tions on
A Room With a View
, and has been
nominated for
The King’s Speech
and
Gosford
Park
, among others.
When it came to creating the far-out cos-
tumes required for
Mad Max
, Beavan immersed
herself in everything from African art to outfits
worn by Pina Bausch’s ballet company. She
made everything from scratch for the film,
using an unusual combination of materials,
including metal, vellum and rawhide, to create
the hundreds of costumes required to accom-
modate the huge cast. The biggest challenge,
however, was designing costumes that could
stand up to the harsh conditions in the Namib-
ian desert.
“You don’t know what the sand is going to
whip up,and we had to build in safety elements
without compromising the look,” says Beavan,
who prides herself on her sense of realism
when it comes to creating costumes.“I want to
be able to justify why everything is there, so it
has to be vaguely grounded, even if it’s in a
post-apocalyptic way.”
Beavan also recently worked on Gore Verbin-
ski’s
A Cure for Wellness
, a modern-day super-
natural thriller set in a Swiss sanatorium, which
shot at Studio Babelsberg in Berlin. “Gore is
incredibly specific and had a fantastic amount
of references,” says Beavan, who set out to cre-
ate a timeless, desaturated look for the film.
She recently returned to her comfort zone,
however, for Amma Asante’s
A United Kingdom
.
Based on true events in the late 1940s, the film
is the story of how the King of Botswana
(David Oyelowo) controversially fell in love
with and married a white London office worker
(Rosamund Pike). “It reminded me of my par-
ents who got married in the same registry
office, so it was familiar,” says Beavan, who is
nevertheless keen to take on new challenges.
“After
Mad Max
I feel equipped to do strange
and weird,” she laughs.
Fairy-tale collaboration
Also in the running for an Oscar in 2016 was
veteran UK costume designer Sandy Powell,
nominated for her work on two very different
films: Kenneth Branagh’s lavish fairy tale
Cin-
derella
and Todd Haynes’ 1950s New York-set
romantic drama
Carol
, which was her third col-
laboration with US director Haynes following
Velvet Goldmine
and
Far From Heaven
.The latter
was also set in the 1950s but had a very differ-
ent look.“[
Far From Heaven
] was the end of the
’50s and very heightened and stylised, while
Carol
is set in 1952 and is based on reality,” says
“
I WANT TO BE
ABLE TO JUSTIFY
WHY EVERYTHING
IN MAD MAX IS
THERE, SO IT HAS TO
BE VAGUELYGROUNDED, EVEN
IN A POST-APOCALYPTICWAY
”
Jenny Beavan, costume designer
Mad Max: Fury Road
10
