Costume Critique: My Little Pony Equestria Girls- Rainbow Rocks

Yes. I went there. Nope. I'm not sorry! I love this sequel so much! My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks! no specific designers, but lots of artists and animators.

3 &7) I love the character designs in this movie. This is  spin off of the show My Little Pony, so they designers had to think of how to translate ponies into humans and maintain the characters' personalities and characteristics. They even incorporated the cutie marks (butt tattoos) in the characters, even the background characters. It must have been lots of fun and also kinda frustrating to get each character just right.

5) again.... favorite costume... yup.... tough question. I really love the villainess'  designs. They were sirens banishes to our world and they take on the forms of normal high school girls. Yet, their design is very pop starish. It really makes them stand out from the background characters and even the main characters. No matter what form or outfit they are in, they do stand out above anyone else.

(siren form, normal, siren powers restored respectively)

 Another personal favorite other than the main characters are the fashionistas, the Snapshots. I mean look at them! How would you describe their look. gothic? punk? cute? a mix of all? I'm mainly talking about all of them beside the white haired one. very very unique and different and i absolutely love it! the colors and style and accessories just makes me squee and geek out and want to make it ASAP. both of them because I love them both

Lab Hours

These lab hours were rather frustrating. I tried making another top cap but something was off and the pieces werent fitting together like they should. Sooooo I went "nope" . I finished added lace to Tori's park stroller skirt so it would reach her ankles. Once I finished that i went to the board to find something to do. Most of the things were pretty unclear and I didnt' feel right working on them when someone else knows more than I do what needed to be done. So decided to go exploring and find pieces for different people. I found coats for mr. and mrs. Banks and found several hats for other characters (see pic of me working a black hat with my new haircut with a derp face). Even though I didn't feel like i was doing much, I'm pretty sure that my exploring the closet for those small pieces did actually help.

Costume Shop

The costume shop is a fun, messy, crowded place with lots of happy, interesting and exciting items. It is a unique environment with exciting and random people. And Disney references. What would the world be without Disney references?

Things that go on in the costume shop are always interesting.

Sometimes you find yourself stuck in the costume closet upstairs for who knows how long. Time is like a vacuum there. You forget what sunlight is. You forget what fresh air tastes like. If you're there more than an hour you risk forgetting who you are. Which is what nearly happened when we put away two whole racks of 'go backs'. I later had to revisit that place to search for *gasp* a hoop skirt. The worst part was I had to go back alone. I'm (mostly) just kidding. But I did get in and out as fast as I could carrying a hoop skirt.

I was extremely happy to finish my project of working on Miss Lark's costume, and it looks quite fabulous, if I do say so myself! However, I put the costume away before I remembered to take a picture of it, so instead, I give you the classy and sassy INGRID!!

Ingrid, the sassy constable. Don't mess with her.

For my next project, I worked on the dress for one of Ms. Corry's daughters. I might have made a slight mistake with it, and I might have broken a needle (again), but I blame everyone else for letting me sew, really it's their fault. So the dress is not done, I will probably have to fix it up next class period, but that's all right! Anyway, here it is!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

How To Steal A Million

For my costume critique I am turning to Hollywood glamour for inspiration! This movie I actually really loved. This is the latest movie of Hepburn's career that I have seen, and I was questioning how I would like the fashion, considering it was filmed mid sixties and I am a little hesitant when it comes to the fashion of that era (generally I prefer fifties fashion), but I found myself pleasantly surprised!! Hepburn of course looked fantastic, and how could she not while wearing designs of Givenchy?

For the most part I loved the all the looks, however there were some of Audrey's outfits I wasn't totally in love with, But I suppose it is because I wasn't such a fan of the style of the time. I  just didn't love Audrey's big hair, the beehive look doesn't sit very well with me. And the large buggy sunglasses weren't so spectacular, and the hats she wore weren't pretty either. Particularly the first one shown in her opening outfit (shown below). It looks like an odd felt helmet thing. I just thought it was weird... However, I thought basically ALL the dresses looked fantastic! And there was a point when she wore this adorable blue/teal colored coat. It was a really cute coat with a beautiful color. And the black lace dress she wears when she meets with Mr. Dermott to plan the theft is AMAZING, really gorgeous, plus with the black lace mask--just so pretty! Definitely my favorite outfit--I may have found my end of the semester project!!! I think putting the heavy eyeliner on her was somewhat a risk, and I can't decide if it paid off or not. Sometimes it feels far too heavy for her, and in some scenes I think it looks fine.

And as for the men, well they looked basic enough. They all wore suits, and the policeman wore police outfits, so pretty much as expected; however, when we are first introduced to Mr. Dermott (when he is "stealing" the painting), he is wearing a tuxedo and looks fantastic in it! I don't see how it is the most practical thing for a burglar to wear, or really why he was wearing it, but it looked so good I don't really care. Overall, they seemed like a well dressed and well paired couple.

Considering costuming this piece, it seems fairly straightforward. Put the men in suits, the policemen/guards in policemen/guard uniforms. The only character with much variance is Nicole (Hepburn's character), and she looks great (almost) all the time. And she has so many different costumes that it must have been hard to come up with so many.

Overall, it was a pretty dazzling movie set in a lovely venue--Paris--and although the storyline might have been a little far-fetched at times, I thought it was a very charming movie, with everything seeming cohesive and going together well.

Lauren Hadley, Costume Critique

As I was thinking of a production I could watch this weekend for my Costume Critique, I wanted to watch something which was more magical, and whimsical. Immediately, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came to mind. As I was searching on the web, finding out who the costume designer was for the 2005 production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a little harder than the past productions I have critiqued. The costume designer was, Gabriella Pescucci. 

Pescucci was born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1941 and did not start her career as a costume designer but as an assistant to another film worker. She has been the costume designer for many famous directors, such as Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese. For her work in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, alone, Pescucci was nominated for four awards and won the Nastro d’Argento award. In 1993, Pescucci even won an Oscar for the film, The Age of Innocence. Througout her live time, Pescucci has work in almost 60 productions. 

I think that Pescucci’s vision for the costumes for this production were spot on. I really like how she did not merely replicate the costume designs from the previous, 1971 production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Instead, she took those designs and modernized them and made them more realistic. What was most interesting to me about her specific work on Charlie and the Chocolate factory, is that each character, whether a main character or a supporting one, has their own unique look. Each of the children’s outfits who come to visit the Chocolate Factory are a perfect expression of their personalities. For example, Violet Beauregarde, the gum-chewer, wears a tracksuit which fits her competitive ways and Veruca Salt, the rich daddy’s-girl who gets everything she wants, wears a dress with a matching fur coat. From my observation, it looks like Pescucci took time and energy working on each individual character, no matter the importance of their role. 

I especially like Willy Wonka’s wardrobe, who was played by the talented Johnny Deep. In the book, Willy “Wonka is described by Roald Dahl as having a goatee and "marvelously" bright eyes, high and "flutey" voice, a face "alight of fun and laughter" and quick little jerky movements "like a squirrel". He is enthusiastic, talkative, and friendly.” I think Pescucci did a wonderful job in creating Willy Wonka’s iconic look. In the 2005 production, Willy Wonka wears what looks like to be deep red, velour, striped coat with fringe along the edges. The coat is accompanied by a black, shiny, tall, top hat, grey, skin tight gloves, and a very unique can with a lot of details. I like how Willy Wonka’s look was not trendy or seen before, it was unique and fit his eccentric personality perfectly. 

I too liked how Pescucci portrayed

the Oompa Loompas. In the 1971 production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa Loompas looked unrealistic. Their skin was bright orange, hair was green, and their hips pointed out too far. Whereas, in the 2005 production, the Oompa Loompas appeared to be more futuristic as they wore red, plastic, jumpsuits.

Taylor's lab hours

This past week I worked primarily on two different things:

Pattern pdf

Sister Dooley pinned it up!

One of them was a pattern that Sister Dooley needed taped together and traced for the statue unitards. Man, I had no idea how difficult that it was actually going to be. I thought that it was going to be a breeze, but patterns are confusing. But, hey! I got it done. I was able to trace Hera's unitard (for Sierra Phillips) which was tiiiiiinnnyyy!

Mrs Correy (Broadway)

What we have thus far.

The second thing that I did was work with Mrs Correy's costume. Honestly, this costume has taken forever and a day to put together thus far. I think that the reason for taking so darn long is that Mrs. Correy is an eccentric and creative character. On Broadway, her bussel is trays of treats! I've been super excited about her character. It is still in the making, and it's taking a while but the end result will be AWESOME! I'm super excited to make her accessories, which will be letters and such. I guess next I'm going to have to sew all of it together instead of just keeping it up with pins! Hopefully, that won't take very long. Also, Alpha and I were wanting to make her bussel huge!

Words to the wise: Don't do all of your lab hours at once. Your feet will hurt so bad that you won't want to walk for a while. 'Nuff said, yo!

Taylor Costume Critique: Selma

This weekend, I went to Laie Palms Cinema with my friends to watch Selma. Selma is a film set during the Civil Rights movement in the United States. The main character is Martin Luther King Jr. Other characters include Martin Luther King Jr.'s wife, Malcolm X, and many other people who left a profound imprint on the Civil Rights movement. The film was awesome. Films are supposed to have a way to manipulate the emotions and feelings of their audience through music and other things. Selma did a fantastic job.    

Ruth E. Carter

Name the production and the costume designer.

Selma's costume designer was Ruth E. Carter.

Are the costumes the right for the movie, in period and in style?

As I paid attention to the costuming in the film, I noticed a few different things. To give some background facts, fashion is something that moves slowly. The rich are the first ones to move onto the next fashion while the poor are the last. I noticed that the middle class and powerful stayed more up to date on the fashion of the times. I also noticed that the lower class people were still in nineteen fifties style appropriate wear. Also, older people had older clothes. The old man in the movie was still wearing fifties-appropriate clothing. The young boys were up on the times. I couldn't find any pictures on Google to showcase this (seeing as how the movie just came out and all) but it was just something that I noticed. I really like how Carter was smart about that. It made the film more real, and while this isn't a conscious idea to everyone who watches films, it stood out to me.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King (wife)

Something that I also noticed was that Carter  took the nineteen sixties style clothing, and took a more modern touch to it. I especially noticed this with Corretta Scott King's (Martin's wife) dress in the opening scene. I noticed the stones and beads on the dress. This is something that is very popular and fashionable right now. To be as glamorous as possible. She was a beautiful character. Because of the style of costuming here, she is as beautiful now as she was then.

What costumes did I like best? What was done well?

Oprah Winfrey's character, Annie Lee Cooper, was always dressed beautifully. Her dress colors were bright. Her coat was always clean and pressed. Her earrings were always nice and sensible. Her hair was always on point. Her makeup was always tidy. I love Annie Lee Cooper. I feel as though her costuming was very sensible and symbolic. Annie Lee Cooper was and is a symbol, representing the fact that Blacks were the same as Whites in every way except skin color and treatment. She defied the stereotype and was always beautiful, and that's why she was my favorite costume. When she was denied the ability to register to vote, she still looked beautiful. When she was beaten on the bridge, she was still dressed beautifully.