Costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux dresses Saoirse Ronan's sweet Eilis Lacey character, a shy Irish immigrant who travels alone from her native Ireland to New York, where she eventually falls in love with a sweet Italian man named Tony. Dicks-Mireaux told EW that director John Crowley decided that Grace Kelly would the perfect reference in creating Ellis' graceful style. In the film, Ellis is seen wearing delicate knit sweaters, full skirts and pretty dresses.
The Oscar-buzzworthy drama tells the tale of an unexpected love affair between a young photographer (played by Rooney Mara) and an older woman (Cate Blanchett) who's going through a difficult divorce with her husband. While their performances have been highly praised, they're not the only ones to command the screen — the film's '50s-inspired looks take center stage, too. Styled by Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, Mara is dressed up in actual vintage garb scoured from the U.S. while Blanchett wears custom-designed pieces.
One of the most memorable scenes in Disney's Cinderella is that moment when Cinderella (played by Lily James) walks down the staircase in the enchanting iconic ball gown. According to costume designer Sandy Powell, she customized the dress' color palette, used wire cage to form the skirt's tent-like shape and worked with a lighting company to help light up her dress.
When it was time to find '90s-inspired outfits for coming-of-age comedy Dope — which stars Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori and Kiersey Clemons as outcasts from Inglewood High School who get into some unexpected trouble with drugs — costume designer Patrik Milani referred to Instagram. "I used the hashtag Inglewood High and it opened up a whole new world to me of what these kids dressed like with limited resources," Milani shared with Pret-a-Reporter. "I would just follow them and do screen grabs."
Jennifer Lawrence stars in Joy — the film inspired by the life of Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop — in which she had to undergo 45 costume changes to capture her character's evolution from struggling mom to business mogul. Says costume designer Michael Wilkinson of Joy's outfits, "she finds different ways of using her clothes to express her determination," which include "quietly rebellious jeans and T-shirts, a wedding dress, expensive tailor-made suits and a tough, intimidating leather jacket and sunglasses."
Johnny Depp may have been the star of action-comedy Mortdecai, but the real scene-stealers were his perfectly groomed mustache and well-tailored suits. In an interview with the Costume Designers Guild, costume designer Ruth Myers shared that Depp went through 18 outfit changes and "never repeated the same suit. And he would change in the evening into his robe or smoking jacket."
There's no doubt Meryl Streep is a rock star (she is one of the greatest living actresses, after all), but she officially transforms into one in Ricki and the Flash, starring as singer-guitarist Ricki Randazzo who leaves her family to pursue her dream of rock 'n' roll stardom. Thanks to costume designer Ann Roth, Streep's character rocks out in leather and lace. And let's not forget the braids and black eyeliner, either.
Despite the White Sox hat faux pas, Sons of Anarchy costume designer Kelli Jones perfectly captured late '80s and early '90s hip-hop fashion in Straight Outta Compton with pieces from Levi's, Dickies, Carhartt, adidas and Nike. The cast went through "866 total changes in the movie — and down to the shoelace, I had to get it right," Jones told MTV.
Suffragette stars Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter as the working-class women risking their lives to fight for equality in early 20th-century Britain. In order to reflect the group's fight for social change in that time period, costume designer Jane Petrie told Vogue that she "chose original clothing — nearly everything on camera is 100 years old." She added, "It’s fragile and delicate and required a lot of maintenance to last the shoot."
To help transform Eddie Redmayne transform into Lili Elbe — the transgender pioneer whose story is captured in English bio-drama The Danish Girl — costume designer Paco Delgado told WWD that he researched the couple's art (Lili Elbe and her wife, Gerda Wegener, who is played by Alicia Vikander), as well as the designs of Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin and Coco Chanel in the '20s.
Trumbo tells the tale of outspoken Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston) who was blacklisted for his political beliefs. To capture the film's old-Hollywood style, costume designer Daniel Orlandi told the Los Angeles Times that he "found some beautiful vintage woolens to make Bryan's suits" and used his own collection of vintage trims and ribbons, among other adornments, to design hats for L.A. Times gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren).
Jane Fonda stars as aging film star Brenda Morel in Paolo Sorrentino's Youth, in which she's seen first as a glamorous diva whose youthful appearance deteriorates. In an interview with Wymsee, costume designer Carlo Poggioli shared that Sorrentino wanted him to refer to Carroll Baker, Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren — "someone who can represent a big idea of a diva" — in creating Fonda's character.