Here's a chance to get a close-up look at some of the actual costumes worn by
actors in some of our favorite movies and British dramas like Masterpiece's
Downton Abbey.
The point is: have we overlooked the something new, some source
of revenue previously untapped?
This formal is worn by Maggie Smith as Violet
Crawley the Dowager Countess of Grantham.
Jenna Coleman plays Queen in Victoria,
and wears this extravagant coronation gown.
The costumes were meticulously sewn by Cost Prop based in North London with a
definite flair for the dramatic.
The cinematic Couture exhibit is at SCAD
Fash, the country's first Museum of fashion and film, located in the heart of
Midtown Atlanta. Open to the public, it's also a learning tool for students
attending SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. They craft the mannequins,
to fit the costumes, style the wigs to match the hairstyles of the day. Remember
the Queen's new do, in Victoria?
Tell me, are you good with hair? I'm inspecting the
troops tomorrow and there'll be so many ladies of fashion there. Perhaps a
pendant braid around each ear?
One student replicated Victoria's crowns using a 3d printer.
It took 52 hours to print this crown. Rafael Gomez, the director of fashion
exhibitions at SCAD fash, says a good costume helps actors develop their
character. Keira Knightley's gown in the Duchess takes you back to
eighteenth-century England, while these flapper era gowns, featured in the series
Mr. Selfridge set in London, bring in the roaring 20s.
It's quite a different
twenties look for Downton Abbey's aristocrat Martha Levinson, played by the
charismatic Shirley MacLaine.
From war and peace Downton still stands and the
parolees are still in it!
And it's a cocoon coat, the fabrics that were chosen,
the embellishments. We have for example Dangerous Liaison, they got an Oscar for
the best costumes, and if you see all the details that are in the dresses they
are they can almost be considered couture gowns. So we can really like travel
through time through the exhibition.
And the stories these fashions tell. These costumes from Dangerous Liaisons
show what aristocrats, including those in Britain, were wearing before the French
Revolution in 1789. Gowns were ballooning out and hairstyles were piling high.
If you were in a carriage you would need to sit on the floor for the volume of the hair.
After the Revolution and the beheading of King Louis the sixteenth
and Queen Marie Antoinette, this aristocratic style suddenly became a
fashion statement punishable by death.
Aristocracy was out democracy was in and after the revolution we would have what
we see at Jane Austen.
Is that phrases with an F?
Like the costumes worn in the movie Sense and Sensibility.
Now, do not fret my dear.
A style also seen in the British drama Pride and Prejudice
Just the cotton muslin.
These simple styles didn't last long.
Then little by little the sleeve
they start growing at the volume of the skirt start getting big as well.
Compare this early 1800s wedding gown worn by Kate Winslet as Marion Dashwood's and
Sense and Sensibility to Victoria's coronation gown in the 1830s. By the
mid-1800s gowns inflate even more like Scarlett O'Hara shaped dresses from Gone
with the Wind. Yes, fashions here in the South were
following similar trends.
Only to slim down again at the end of the 19th century as you can see in
Nicole Kidman's outfits in Portrait of a Lady. It was a very slim line, you have
the volume in the back, the bustle in the back, and in the corset would the corset
will be elongated true also to create this very elongated figure.
It's very interesting to see the silhouette the historical silhouette through time.
A visit to SCAD Fash Midtown gives you a good look at how fashion evolves.