Oscars: Costume Designer Sandy Powell Scores Two Nominations

Costume designer Sandy Powell has much to celebrate this awards season: She has landed two Oscar nominations under the best costume design category.

Powell is nominated for her work in Cinderella and Carol. The latter pic also scored mentions for best cinematography (Ed Lachman), best original score (Carter Burwell) and best writing for adapted screenplay (Phyllis Nagy), and its two leading ladies — Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara —  also scored nominations for best lead actress and best supporting actress, respectively.

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For Todd Haynes’ Carol, a postwar lesbian love story, Powell referenced 1940s and ‘50s magazines and street images of Manhattan photojournalists Ruth Orkin and Vivian Maier for Blanchett and Mara’s sophisticated retro looks.

Meanwhile, working on Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella required a bit more time — it was a two-year design process for Powell to create Cinderella’s iconic blue ball gown. The look ended up requiring more than 270 yards of fabric, three miles of hem and more than 10,000 Swarovski crystals. “I wanted it to look like a watercolor painting,” Powell recently told The Hollywood Reporter.

Powell is no stranger to earning double nominations from the Academy Awards, as she was nominated for Velvet Goldmine and Shakespeare in Love in 1999. (She ended up winning for the latter.)

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The costume designer has also scored gold for her work in The Aviator (2005) and The Young Victoria (2009). Additionally, Powell has been nominated in the past for Orlando (1992), The Wings of Dove (1997), Gangs of New York (2003), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2006), The Tempest (2011) and Hugo (2012).

This year, Powell will go up against fellow costume designers Paco Delgado (The Danish Girl), Jenny Beavan (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Jacqueline West (The Revenant) in the category.

The Academy Awards will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, Feb. 28, airing live on ABC beginning at 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET.