We are so used to seeing our favourite celebrities wearing expensive, designer clothing that it is very easy to forget sometimes that they don’t wear this kind of stuff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You might see Angelina Jolie wearing diamond encrusted gowns and shoes worth thousands of dollars on the red carpet at a movie premiere, or Brad Pitt wearing an awesome Armani suit at a charity event, but it’s important to remember that these kind of events are always going to bring out the showy side of the rich and famous, because to a certain extent, this is what keeps them popular, famous and wealthy. If you look a bit further, you can find plenty of examples of what celebrities wear when they are not on camera – sportswear, old t-shirts and so on – that show us that they are just human after all.
Category Archives: Hollywood
Costume Design Beginnings
Today, we seem to take it for granted that movie stars are often going to look very glamorous, with great-looking costumes, designer dresses, amazing shoes, awesome hairstyles and so on. But what most people don’t realise is that this was really not always the case. We are so used to seeing Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw wearing ridiculously expensive designer gowns, or classic movie stars of the past wearing glamorous dresses that we don’t think at all about the very beginnings of the movie industry. In the first few years of the movie business, actors and actresses usually just wore their own clothes. Costume design was non-existent. Although nowadays we take it for granted that the costume designers will have a substantial effect on the ‘look’ of a movie and therefore on the audience’s perception of it, for the first years of films, the concept of costume design did not even exist!
Jennifer Lawrence
These days there always seems to be some big new movie or movie franchise coming out that is the next big thing, being featured in all of the newspapers, on all of the TV commercials, billboards and so on. Not that I am saying that this is a bad thing – we’ve had things like the Harry Potter franchise and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both of which I think are definitely worth seeing. The latest movie to be given a huge amount of publicity is The Hunger Games – a dystopian science-fiction movie based on a popular book. One of the stars of this movie is a newish young actress called Jennifer Lawrence who has, like many young actresses nowadays, become something of a fashion icon due to her high profile in movies like this. She obviously has a great sense of fashion, or a brilliant stylist, because she has never put a foot wrong so far.
Celebrity Off Days
Lots of people like to get their fashion ideas, their new trends and styles and their hairstyle ideas from celebrities – just search for all of the celebrity fashion guides, websites and blogs that are spread all over the internet. Of course, this interest is at its greatest when there is some kind of large-scale event going on with lots of celebrities in attendance. For example, there’s always a huge crowd of fashion reporters at the red carpet on Oscars night, asking that familiar question – “so who are you wearing?” But something that is very important to remember is that these events are occasions when celebrities make a huge effort, and spend a large amount of time and money on making sure that they look as good as possible, with designer dresses and talented, expensive hair stylists and make-up artists on hand. If you really want to know how to look good every day, you need to look for pictures of these celebs on their ‘off days’ when they aren’t making a huge effort, see who still looks amazing in a sweatshirt and sports pants and use these more genuine images to create your style.
Classic Hollywood Style Icons
Today, Hollywood as an entity is the thing that most influences our fashion choices. Whenever a famous actor or actress is photographed styling a new, interesting look, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will appear the next day in all of the fashion magazines, all of the newspapers and, dare I say it, all of the fashion blogs – and pretty shortly everybody will be adopting the style. The same is also true of other celebrities, but for some reason, the stars of the film industry usually seem to be the leaders of the pack. Hollywood has a strong history of this influence – the classic stars of Hollywood have always set more fashion and style trends than other celebrities. Just think about Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and of course Marilyn Monroe and you can see why Hollywood has managed to become the situation for setting fashion trends.
Sacha Baren Cohen’s Dictator
So the Oscars have just taken place in California once again, with the stars of Hollywood in attendance. Most of the fashions and styles being exhibited by these stars was pretty typical for this sort of event; the women wearing their expensive designer gowns and high heels, and the men mostly opting for the traditional evening black tie wear. Mostly. Because there was a certain gentleman who turned up to the ceremony in something rather different. I am talking about controversy superstar Sacha Baren Cohen, creator of comedy personas Ali G, Borat and Bruno. And now it seems like he has added another character to the list. Cohen turned up to the red carpet as the “Dictator” – the titular character from his upcoming movie of the same name. Wearing a white military-style uniform and a huge false beard, Cohen caused a substantial amount od disruption, but nothing too extreme.
Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler is not only very well known for being an extremely beautiful woman and a fantastic actress, with movie credits including Stealing Beauty, Jersey Girl and Armageddon – she is also well known for being the daughter of famous rocker Steve Tyler, the singer from the band Aerosmith. Given this connection, you would think that she would surely let her father know if she was going to be doing any public singing. But when Liv recently demonstrated her vocal talents in a new commercial for Givenchy’s perfume Very Irresistible Givenchy Electric Rose, she apparently did not even tell her family or her dad about her work on this project. I hope that her father was pleased about it once he did actually get to see it, and I am sure he was very impressed with the result.
Celebrities and Tanktops
I expect that everyone reading this has at least a couple of tank tops in their wardrobe right now. It is just such a useful piece of clothing. A white tank top can really go together with a huge amount of different styles and outfits. If you are just heading out for a relaxed day around town, and you are wearing jeans, a tank top is the perfect thing to just throw on and go. You can also achieve many slightly smarter or ‘smart/casual’ looks by doing nothing more than just adding a few accessories to your outfit – such as a fashionable scarf, or some nice-looking jewellery. You can combine a tank top with a short skirt to achieve some great summer outfits, or with a longer skirt to get a kind of ‘business chique’ look, which can be great for the office. The tank top is also a favourite of many celebs, like Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, Pixie Lott and Milla Jovovich.
Sex and the City Fashion
The world of popular culture at the moment seems to be dominated by sex, celebrities and fashion. This is why there are so many magazines, television shows and movies that feature these themes heavily. The television show Sex and the City, for example, was a hugely successful production (mainly amongst women), because it contained a lot of sex and a lot of truly beautiful fashion apparel. A huge number of pieces from the biggest and best fashion designers were featured in the show and in the spinoff movies, including items from Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Dior, Chanel, Gucci and many, many more. In the movie, Carrie Bradshaw, the writer portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker, wore, amongst other things, a stunning D & G dress with a studded belt. No wonder we eat all of this up and ask for more!
Movie Style
Movies and television shows often have an undeniable impact on us, particularly with regard to the clothes that we wear, and the trends and styles that we adopt. I think that this has something to do with the celebrity culture that is prevalent in our society – actors and actresses are, after all, some of the biggest celebrities in the world, in terms of their fame and influence. And as movies are often very stylised, in order to give a certain look and feel to them – you can see how they can very easily be influential in terms of style. Just think about all of the long leather jackets and stylised sunglasses that suddenly popped up everywhere after The Matrix was released. And if a famous movie star starts to style his hair in a new, interesting way, you can bet that many guys will have copied the look in a few days.