Prince William and Kate Middleton are probably one of the most famous couples in the world today, along with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and David and Victoria Beckham. There is not much that they do in public that doesn’t invite a swarm of photographers and celebrity reporters to catalogue their every move. Very recently, for example, they attended a movie premiere of Disney’s new film African Cats, and as expected the photographers and reporters were in attendance to capture their every move. Middleton is known as a fashion icon, and she certainly didn’t disappoint this time. She wore a beautiful dress by Matthew Williamson with smart black high heels. The prince wore a fantastic-looking dark suit, with a white shirt and a reddish tie. Not even the rain could dampen their image together!
Category Archives: Movies
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!
Setting an Image
It’s strange how the roles that actors and actresses play that make them famous often have such a huge effect on how they are perceived by the general public. Sometimes this results in them being ‘type-cast’ for certain types of role. I remember seeing the late, great Leslie Nielsen in one of his earlier roles in a non-comedy film and I couldn’t really take him seriously after having watched him for years in all of the awesome comedy movies that he made. After watching actress Keira Knightley play refined, ‘lady-like’ characters in corsets and fine shoes in many movies, such as Pride and Prejudice, this is the image that I automatically picture when I hear her name. But in a recent photo-shoot, she seems to be deliberately trying to avoid this association. In a shoot seemingly designed to show off a ‘wilder’ side, Knightley is wearing leather, smoking and just generally looks more ‘dangerous’ than she has done before.
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.
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.
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.
Lingerie Museum
In Los Angeles, or more specifically in Hollywood, just a few blocks away from the famous Chinese Theatre, there is a rather garish and large building. It is painted grey and pink, and stands out rather distinctly from the surrounding buildings. This unique building is called Frederick’s of Hollywood, and is a very famous and very distinguished lingerie store. Here you can buy an extremely wide range of different lingerie styles and types. But what is particularly cool and unique about this store, and what makes it suitable for this blog, is the so-called ‘Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame’. Here one can walk about and view their exhibits, which consist of lingerie worn by the rich and powerful at important events. Some examples include a top worn by Madonna, the boxer shorts worn by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump and a corset worn by Ingrid Bergman. Check it out if you’re ever in the area.