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Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Frock
by Eleanor M. Farrell
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The light fall of rainflakes heralds the Bay Area holiday season; time to put on those shopping caps and come up with gift ideas for friends and family. Here are a few suggestions for costume-friendly types on your list:
Books
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The juiciest new book of the season has got to be Gowns by Adrian: The MGM Years 1928-1941 by Howard Gutner (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., November 2001, hardcover, $39.95). With over 180 photos (two-thirds of which have never before been published) as well as costume sketches, the book covers the glory years of one of Hollywood's most influential designers. Adrian's showstopping creations for such films as Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, The Women, and Marie Antoinette created seductive screen identities for Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer, and continue to influence American fashion design even today.
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Historical film aficiandos will be sure to enjoy The Corset: A Cultural History by Valerie Steele, chief curator and acting director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York (Yale University Press, November 2001, hc, $39.95); and fans of ethnic costume and foreign films will be happy to see a new trade paperback reprint of Kimono: Fashioning Culture by Liza Crihfield Dalby, who actually spent a year as a geisha in Japan. Dalby's novel The Tale of Murasaki, a fictional biography of the author of The Tale of Genji, is also a wonderful resource for historical Japanese costume, and has recently been published as a trade paperback.
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Jane-ites might appreciate a copy of Jane Austen in Hollywood, a collection of essays on film adaptations of Austen's novels including the recent Mansfield Park, edited by Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield (University Press of Kentucky, 2nd edition, 2001, tp, $17).
Mmmm... an entire book about a single fashion color! In 1856, while trying to synthesize artificial quinine, 18-year-old chemistry student William Perkin instead produced a murky residue: Perkin had stumbled across the world's first aniline dye. Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World by Simon Garfield (W.W. Norton & Company, April 2001, hc, $23.95) combines history, fashion, chemistry and gossip in a fascinating mix, justifying Oscar Wilde's famous line (in The Picture of Dorian Gray) about the dangers of trusting a woman wearing mauve.
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Finally, with filmgoers buzzing over the upcoming release of Peter Jackson's first installment of his Tolkien adaptation, The Fellowship of the Ring, on December 10th, there are a slew of film tie-in books about to be released, including "The Lord of the Rings" Official Movie Guide by Brian Sibley (Houghton Mifflin, hc $24.95, tp $14.95) and "The Fellowship of the Ring" Visual Companion by Jude Fisher (Houghton Mifflin, hc, $19.95).
Calendars
Another Tolkien film tie-in, "The Lord of the Rings" 2001-2002 Student Planner [Engagement] Calendar features stunning photographs from The Fellowship of the Ring which show off designer Ngila Dickson's meticulously detailed costumes for the film. Expect to see lots of recreations among 2002 costume masquerade entries....
Want something more funky? How about Cult Attack or Pulp Attack, collections of vintage pulp magazine cover images (Tushila, $12.95) evoking the best (worst?) of '50s B movies? Or another brand of retro-chic, The Aloha Shirt, featuring photos from Dale Hope's book of the same name (Ronnie Sellers Productions, Inc., $12.95)? There's just no excuse for bare walls.
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Video
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OK, I hope I've already convinced all of you to invest in a DVD player; there's no better format for appreciating film and television costume design. All of last year's costume Oscar honorees -- Gladiator (the winner), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Quills, 102 Dalmations, and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas -- are available on video. One 2001 film likely to garner an Oscar nomination, Baz Luhrmann's delirious Moulin Rouge, will be released on video and DVD on December 18th, just in time for Christmas. And the new whiz-bang DVD release of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is sure to include some resources on Queen Amidala's fabulous costumes amongst the special featurettes.
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Explore some new territory: with the success of Crouching Tiger and current popularity of Iron Monkey (a 1993 film currently sweeping the U.S. theatrical market in an updated print), the Chinese martial arts film is a hot item. The costumes are wonderful -- colorful, attractive, and yet practical for those weightless leaps and frenetic swordfights. Some of the best examples of Hong Kong movie costuming are found in Wing Chun, Swordsman II and The Bride with White Hair (the latter with award-winning costumes by Japanese designer Emi Wada). These and Iron Monkey are all available for home viewing; DVDs are recommended as the subtitles are usually easier to read (and to remove when you want to concentrate on garment details). Older films may be available only as Hong Kong (uncoded) releases which will play in most DVD players, and are easily available online from HKFlix.com and other resources. But get the U.S. (Region 1-coded) edition of Bride: it includes a "making of" featurette and audio commentary from the director, Ronnie Yu, who discusses his costume choices for the film.
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A less film-intense print version of this article appears in the December 2001 issue of The Costumer's Scribe, newsletter of the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild. |
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