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Australia: A Romantic Wardrobe, Part II

FabSugar — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:00:22 PST

Did you happen to go see Australia this weekend? If my first words with costume designer Catherine Martin didn't pique your interest maybe these will. Some specific items of clothing stood out to me in the film - notably the colors of Lady Ashley's clothes, her belts, and her red Chinosierie dress. Here's what Martin had to say about those standouts.

I noticed she wears a lot of blues and browns. The film is so visually arresting how did you factor in the color of the clothes with the beauty of the movie?

"I had another collaborator, Mandy Walker, who is the Director or Photography. Baz, Mandy and I looked at a lot of color photography from that period and we started talking about exploring a palette out of the photography. We had a broad palette that encompassed all the colors from the film. What’s interesting about the color photography from the period, it meant a lot of mixed tones that got really close together, you have a monochromatic base. From that we developed our own color theory.

For the arrival suit, it wasn’t the ideal color choice, we made her blue and white because it was the most unlikely, it clashed with the environment. She was a totally different alien person to this place. And as the movie progresses her colors are references to Australia and become much stronger, she becomes part of her environment."

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read more I noticed throughout her transition in the movie, she has a fondness for belts. Everyone wore belts. Was that more fashion or function? "It’s a combination. The style was wearing two belts, a belt to hold your pants up, and a hobble belt, which helped you capture horses, tying their legs together so they can’t run away during the night, which some of the stockmen wore. Looking over the beautiful leather accessories and sportswear of the 1930s, there were some beautiful belts, notably made by Hermes and various other designers of the period. I think they’re a fantastic accessory; I love how it defines the waistline, pulls the outfit together. I really was a fan of the belt in this film." I love how it also defined Nicole’s tiny, perfect waist. Even at the end of the film, she still looked put together. "Yeah, it’s sort of a no nonsense thing. You feel definite in some way." Tell me about the red Chinosierie dress. And the pink one. What a unique choice. "Those two dresses. Basically, Lady Ashley loses all her clothes at one point. Baz said the challenge was: What is she going to wear when she gets to town, all her clothes have been trashed. We were looking in the contemporary newspapers of the day. And in the Northern a lot of Chinese tailors would advertise their manufacturing skills and that fact that they could make clothes in a very short space of time. Darwin is closer to Indonesia than any other city. You had a very big Asian influence at the time, and a very important Chinatown. We made a back-story in our minds that Sing Song, who was the Chinese cook, would have had a coven who comes from Shanghai to Darwin and he would have a tailoring business. And Sarah would go to that business and get her clothes made. There was a big fashion amongst Asian people, which was a problem with the Nationalists of the time. In reality, she would have gone to a Chinese tailor." The red dress was the standout dress of the movie, of the party. I love how it gets rained on, but she doesn’t care. "Yes. The one good thing about silk organza is it responds to the wet."

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Australia: A Romantic Wardrobe, Part I

FabSugar — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:00:22 PST

Today, the highly anticipated romantic adventure Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann, releases. I had the opportunity to preview the film, in all its romantic glory, as well as to speak with the costume designer, Catherine Martin. We also had a fun fete at the San Francisco Ferragamo store, in honor of Lady Ashley's shoes in the movie - all designed by the Italian fashion house. Two styles of limited-edition shoes were reproduced from the movie and are being sold at Ferragamo stores; 950 were made, and the San Francisco store is selling 120 of them.

There's so much to share, but I was really excited to see this film and speak with Martin. I am a huge Baz fan - I own both Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet - and as you may or may not know, Martin and Baz are married. Call it a cinematic match made in fashion heaven. No wonder the stories Luhrmann tells resonate so well: They are visually and emotionally epic. To hear what Martin had to say about Lady Ashley's wardrobe transformation, her kooky spyglasses (loved these), and the Ferragamo shoes, and to see lots of Australia eye candy,

read more. Can you talk about the transition of Lady Ashley’s wardrobe throughout the movie? "Baz really focused on Lady Sarah Ashley’s wardrobe and the revealing to the audience of her change. Eighteen months before we starting rolling film we went to Nashville and met with Nicole. Under Baz’s instructions, I had designed and brought a whole bunch of costumes that polarized her before and after. We could explore what worked and what didn’t work. I brought a version of the riding suit, and the arrival costume, to try and find the dynamic of before and after." So you had to really plan ahead? "Yes, Baz is very detailed and demands a lot of research and back stories you need to discover and work on. And it takes months; we had a preproduction of about eight months and we were working with 2,000 costumes. That’s how long it takes." Those kooky glasses Lady Ashley wore cracked me up. Where did you find those? And the mosquito net? "In the script it said she wears spyglasses. And I said, “What are spy glasses?” There were travel logs written in the period about a woman wearing spyglasses. They were these glasses people wore to protect themselves from flies, which is also why she’s wearing the net. This is a classic design from the period. We made one slight alteration. Originally we thought they would be dark glasses but it was such a shame to not be able to see Nicole’s eyes. We swapped the glass for clear so you could see her reactions, which are so colorful and charming. The first pair were original period glasses we bought off the Internet, they were actually vintage and we had thickened them in our model workshop." We had an event at the San Francisco Ferragamo store and I know Ferragamo designed the shoes for Nicole's character. How did all that come about? "Footwear is always very difficult. To me a shoe really makes an outfit. But you have to think about practicality, too. They need to be comfortable. It’s preferable for them to be made to measure. Ferragamo seemed like an obvious partner; they have made shoes for aristocracy, royalty, and movie stars. And they had an enormous archive of shoes. They were groundbreakers and I thought what a great collaboration. It was fantastic - I was able to work with the designers, look back at the archives. And we could make changes and were eventually able to come up with a fantastic wardrobe of shoes for Lady Sarah Ashley." What about Hugh's rugged shoes? "Hugh’s were made by R.M. Williams, a traditional Australian bush outfitter. They made all the footwear for the stockmen and Hugh." We couldn’t actually see the shoes she was wearing with the Chinoiserie red dress. I must know: What shoes was she wearing underneath there? "Panne velvet sandals, they were a beautiful green gray. We used chagrine, which is stingray leather, which was very fashionable in the 1930s. Ferragamo has done a version of the shoe, in both black and red, as a limited edition. They are absolutely beautiful. From their inception, Ferragamo has always used exotic and textured shoes. There’s also a beautiful pair of Mary Jane’s, we used a wonderful raffia macramé, which was another one of Ferragamo’s signature looks.

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Morning Links - Did Pippa Middleton Break Up With Her Boyfriend?

PopSugar — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 07:22:00 PDT

Pippa Middleton may have split from boyfriend Alex Loudon - People
Ron Howard on his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard's obsessions - Huffington Post
Do you think these are the 25 funniest movies set in school? - Rotten Tomatoes
Chris Martin looks unusually happy to see photographers - Lainey Gossip
LeAnn Rimes gets a haircut from Jennifer Aniston's stylist - PopEater
Inside Kendra Wilkinson's Vegas birthday bash! - TMZ
Catherine Zeta-Jones wows at the Tonys! - Us Weekly
Will it be a boy or a girl for Tori Spelling? - Wonderwall
Possible love connection for Jessica Biel and Colin Farrell? - Celebitchy
Alexander Skarsgard does a hot photo shoot for Vogue - Amy Grindhouse
Tracy Morgan seems to have a friend in Chris Rock - Zap2It
Brooke Burke shares her bikini-body secrets - Fox 411
Lady Gaga has a huge drop in record sales - ICYDK

Picture It: Just Married

Tara Sharp — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:30:43 PDT

Newlyweds and newly titled Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, leave their royal wedding brunch reception in an Aston Martin decked out with balloons and ribbons. Will drove the convertible, which had a license plate that read "JU5T WED." The couple ditched tradition again by choosing to drive themselves in the converted eco-friendly-fueled car. Before heading off on their honeymoon, the regal pair will attend a party hosted by Prince Charles.