Lisy Christl Not Anonymous Now

Since the Academy Awards Ceremony is taking place this Sunday, we’re featuring the films nominated for Best Costume Design in 2011 this week.  The first movie we’re discussing is Anonymous.  If you don’t remember this film, it’s probably because it came and went after facing mixed reviews.  It tells the tale of the most famous writer in the world, William Shakespeare, during Elizabeth I’s rule over the United Kingdom, but this film plays on the paranoia that the Bard of Avon was actually Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford (played by Rhys Ifans, pictured top right).  We here at theSkinnyStiletto aren’t exactly conspiracy theorists, and find it wildly insulting to history and commoners everywhere to assume that a middle-class Englishman couldn’t pen the most famous plays on Earth.  Since we’re huge Shakespearean fans here, and even spent part of our vacation to England two and a half years ago watching William’s famous words come to life in both his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the Globe Theatre in London, you won’t catching us renting this paranoid flick.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the fashion!  German costume designer Lisy Christl did a beautiful job outfitting the cast in various Elizabethan gowns.  British acting legend Vanessa Redgrave (pictured, above and top left) portrays an older Queen Elizabeth, while her own real-life daughter, Joely Richardson (pictured, below), portrays Elizabeth in her younger days.  This genre is certainly a popular time in history that Hollywood continuously tells.  (Fun Fact: Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth: The Golden Age both won Academy Awards for costume design.)  Christl used Janet Arnold’s 2001 book Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d as a proper guideline for Anonymous.  She told The Hollywood Reporter, “For every dress in the film, there’s the original portrait in the background.”  Even though the movie sounds preposterous, at least the clothing is accurate!

Look-of-the-Day

The 84th Academy Awards will take place this Sunday, and in honor of the ceremony, we’re showing some of our favorite costumes from Oscar-nominated films.  This “Tuesday Twosome” is the star-crossed couple from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett play Benjamin and Daisy, who fall in love at opposite ends of the age spectrum, and end up “meeting in the middle.”  Here, Daisy has just finished teaching a dance class, and Benjamin comes to see her in khakis, a white t-shirt, and one delicious charcoal sweater.  (But, let’s be serious – that man looks sexy in anything.)  Daisy is wearing a de rigueur dance uniform – a black leotard and wrap skirt, soft pink ballet slippers and a matching shrug.  Costume designer Jacqueline West told the LA Times, “One of the first things I tried on Cate were the ballet clothes, and she put those clothes on and become a ballerina.  She had studied dance and she would just change her whole posture, even her feet would go out, like dancers’, and her back was straight and she’d tuck her heinie in and she would just become a dancer.  You don’t get that with every actress.”  The elegant Blanchett certainly looks at home as a ballet teacher in black and pink, and even though their outfits are quite simple here, Benjamin and Daisy’s love story is anything but…