Trip to the V&A Museum

I usually go to the V&A quite a few times a year, however I had not been for over 6 months until today! Last time I was there, they were re-doing the Fashion section, so when I visited today I went to see that - but not before I had looked around the Hollywood exhibition.

We had tickets pre-booked for the Hollywood exhibition and our allocated slot was 10.30am, and we didn't leave the exhibition until 12.30pm. My favourite section was, of course, the part with all the historical costumes - dresses from different interpretations of Elizabeth I, costumes from 'Shakespeare in Love', and dresses from 'Marie Antoinette' (2006), 'Marie Antoinette' (1938), 'Barry Lyndon', and 'Dangerous Liaisons', plus a couple more. There were 3 rooms, all with a load of wonderful costumes. My favourite to see were the iconic dresses of Marylin Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, and the dress Judy Garland wore in 'The Wizard of Oz'. The most interesting for me was the tutu from 'Black Swan' worn by Natalie Portman, as I do ballet, and to see the tutu construction and to think how it differed from a tutu used in professional ballet was very interesting.

There's so much I could say about this exhibition, however I am very tired and I need to do homework, so to save time I shall instead direct you to the V&A Hollywood Exhibition page. 

So, after looking around the exhibition, we visited the Fashion section of the museum, which had changed a lot since I had last visited! There were a lot more clothes which I liked and which were useful for me for research. Here are the photos:

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the poor photo quality on my side - as I have said before, all I have is a compact camera.... plus all the clothes were behind glass for obvious reasons! I hope you enjoyed this brief post, I'll hopefully be back to proper blogging soon..... I've just suddenly collapse from being overtired from exams last week. I have a week of school and then another week with exams in - plergh! 

Les Misérables: Beautiful.

I guess this counts as a period film so here goes my first review in the Period Reviews Challenge! Warning: may contain spoilers.

Les Misérables well exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be a gorgeous film, but the locations, sets, costumes, acting... everything was just amazing.
Anne Hathaway as Fantine was one of my favourite things in the film. I remember when everyone heard she was playing Fantine, there were some people who grumbled. Even I was a bit skeptical. However, she played it wonderfully, and I was sobbing as soon as she began to sing 'There was a time when men were kind...'. Fantine's death scene was so emotional. In the stage version, she says she can see Cosette, but in the film, she actually did. 
Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean was well cast, and well performed. He sang brilliantly, and his acting was believable. Russell Crowe's Javert was in tune but possibly a bit blandly acted, however I heard that one of the parts that made me cry the most was a moment suggested by Crowe himself to be added. If you've seen it, you know the moment I mean! Amanda Seyfried's Cosette was sweet and prettily sung, and her acting at the end was probably what made me start to cry rather loudly (it didn't matter, I wasn't the only one by then). Marius, played by Eddie Redmayne, was acted VERY well by Eddie Redmayne, who portrayed Marius as a faithful rebel, whilst also being completely love-struck by Cosette, and he showed his obliviousness to Éponine's feelings very realistically. Aaron Tveit was a fantastic Enjolras. In my opinion, he captured Enjolras' revolutionary, rebellious spirit near to perfectly, and his singing was very, very good. Samantha Bark's feature film debut was perfection. She has always been my favourite Éponine (25th Anniversary Concert) however she adapted to film acting smoothly and her singing was full of raw emotion. Colm Wilkinson, the Original London Cast Jean Valjean, played the Bishop of Digne, and of course his singing was top-notch. Isabelle Allen was an adorable Young Cosette, her acting was wonderful and her singing was a delight to listen to. She has of course also been in the part on the West End, but like Sam Barks, made the transition to film smoothly. Daniel Huttlestone's Gavroche was funny at the right parts, and his death was well done. His singing was brilliant.
The set was lovely to look at. Having seen the behind-the-scenes featurettes on Youtube, I knew that a lot of it was just a set, but I completely forgot whilst watching the film. The streets of Paris came alive on screen, at least for me they did. The locations chosen for the rest of the filming were beautiful and fitting. The docks at the beginning were dramatic and added to he music's effect. 
The film was put together brilliantly. The dates were shown every time there was a time skip. The editing really added to it - a lot of solos were filmed for most of the song looking at the actor's/actress' face. The barricade shots were wonderful - the barricade scenes in general were moving, and the end of the barricade section of the film in general was heartbreaking.

Now onto the costumes! Oh man, the costumes. There was a featurette on the costumes but I'm going to give my opinions anyway. 
Fantine's pink dress stood out from the rest of the factory workers once they'd taken their blue aprons and caps off. The prostitutes scenes showed her stripped down to her undergarments, and she looked vulnerable. The change from white undergarments to red showed, for me, her transition from someone who has life problems but had been getting by, into someone who was ruined. This transition happened after 'Dreamed a Dream' - no coincidence there, then! When in the hospital she was back in a plain white dress, showing that she would be at peace soon, and when her spirit returned at the end, when Valjean was dying, she was still in this plain white dress, but looked happy, as if she had been at peace for a long time.

Valjean's convict clothes at the beginning were rough and harsh looking, and changing into the smart early 19th century clothing was such a transition that my friend didn't realise who he was until the same time Javert thought he was like Valjean... what can I say? Then in the end scene, his blanket looked cosy, but he looked very uncomfortable at the same time, making it even sadder to watch.


Javert's police uniform changed with his rank and time period, keeping to a colour palette of blues and black. What he wore when spying looked a tad modern to me, however I know very little about fashions of those times - all I can say is that he also looked like a very suspicious character in those clothes and I certainly wouldn't have trusted him to 'spy' for my side of the Barricade! I was unsure of what his red medal was for as I am a tad unacquainted with that sort of thing, however his placing it on Gavroche's lifeless body sent me into a crying frenzy - was that him honouring the little urchin with his own medal of what I assume is honour, and the first sign of his breaking down? I am unsure but it struck me nonetheless.

Éponine's costumes showed her harsh life very well. Her first costume showed her as being rough but her thin shawl was soaked threw as it rained during "On My Own", emphasising her fragile emotions. You then saw her binding herself up to wear boy's clothes and join the barricade, which I think was very effective, as in the musical she wears the same blouse under her coat with trousers and her hair stuffed into a hat - the blouse always ruins it for me! She was wearing full male clothing and I think that showed how far she was willing to go to join Marius at the barricade.



The costumes designed for Cosette were wonderful. The large 1830s dress and bonnet at the beginning showed her social status - quite well off, showing the change in positions between Éponine and Cosette even more clearly. Her white nightgown and dressing gown were pure and pretty, and made the romanticism of "In my Life/A Heart Full of Love" into the innocent and sweet love that the scene displays. The rest of her dresses were very pretty, and I loved the wedding gown.
Marius and Enjolras had lovely looking costumes. The costume featurette says that the blue of Eddie Redmayne's trousers matches his eyes. The red jacket worn by Enjolras matched the red flag and emphasised that he was the main rebel in the uprising. The students' cockades added to the revolutionary sense (I actually made one and pinned it onto my jacket to wear to cinema!).


The Thénardier's costumes were extravagant and added to the comedy. They were always changing what they were wearing to match the situations, but never blended with the crowds. I thought this worked VERY well. 
The poor and Gavroche's clothes looked just right to me. They seemed to fit in with the time period and the situations. The extras blended into the scenes well with their costumes, and their costumes added to the grimey looking streets of Paris really made the sense of how poor these people were more realistic to me.

I'm sure there are plenty more things I could talk about - other actors, different settings, situations, costumes - but I simply cannot form my thoughts into written words, there are so many whirling around my head! But I can say that Les Misérables was the best film I have seen for a long time, and even though I had to wait until today to see it (damn being British!) it was well worth the wait. The amount I cried expressed just how happy I was to watch it, I think!

Other Reviews: The Young Victoria (2009); The Phantom of the Opera (2004); Marie Antoinette (2006)

Posting nearly every other day...

If I keep posting every other day (in fact, nearly every day) I won't have anything to post about in the future! But this week has already given me lots to talk about, and we all know there's more to come. So, this week will obviously have to be a bit of a busy week in terms of blog posting.
Firstly, I'd like to announce that I'm going to take part in this:

I'm going to have a go at the 12-15 challenge, wish me luck!

I have many reasons for wanting to join in. The first and foremost is my love of period dramas, however I tend to stick to particular time periods too much - Tudor, Georgian and Regency, slowly moving into Romantic and Early Victorian. Not much variety for someone who wants to be in costuming! My second reason is to do with costuming - more period dramas watched means more learning about costuming each time period! Thirdly, the first half of 2013 is going to be full of stress for me due to exams (I'm already on mock exams this week) and I would have used watching period dramas as a way to relax anyway. My final reason is to do with A-levels, which I start this September. I've chosen English as one of my subjects and reviewing costume dramas will be a fun way to practice writing. As well as all these reasons, I just want to have a go! It's a great idea and it's made me quite excited. However, my reviews will mostly be looking at costume - this is a costume blog after all - but I will also talk about actors, settings, etcetera.

I have exciting news about A-levels! At my school, in year 13, they offer an AS level called "EPQ" - Extended Project Qualification. As I was unable to pick a fourth A-level, I may be allowed to start one of these "EPQ"s in year 12. Then if it goes well I can do a second one during year 13! Of course, if I did end up doing two, I'd find a way to do one about a particular time period of fashion, and the other about French history (it would seem from conversations with people in my school that I'm the only person there who enjoys French history...).

On Thursday I'm going to make yet another Les Misérables post... then again on Friday or Saturday... 

After that I'll try and get into a 2-posts-per-week regime!

Les Misérables fangirling

Update!
Look what I got:

Us UK'ers may have to wait until this Friday to see it (eep!) but they published a "Collector's Booklet" in a Sunday newspaper. I actually woke up before noon to go out and get it from the local supermarket. Gasp.

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As much as I'm looking forward to Les Misérables for the costumes, I am a massive fan of both the book and musical so I'm mainly looking forward to it just because of what it is! Not to mention the cast. Samantha Barks as Éponine - if you don't know who she is, you need to watch the 25th Anniversary Concert, as she's the Éponine in that as well.  I know plenty of people who are excited about Hugh Jackman taking the lead role of Jean Valjean but I can't really comment as I've never watched anything he's been in. However in the featurettes and clips on Youtube it certainly looks like he's going to be brilliant. Then Eddie Redmayne as Marius, and from watching the 'A Heart Full Of Love' clip on Youtube, I think he'll be amazing (and rather lovely to look at....).

I haven't read any of the reviews for it yet because if I want to see something (and I really want to see this), sometimes bad reviews can put me off and I don't enjoy watching it as much, as I'm trying to work out which parts of it that the reviews were saying weren't so good. I've heard from lots of people that there aren't great reviews. My aunt said she'd read a review for it which said that it's great doing this and making a big deal out of it and everything, but it would have worked better if the actors could actually sing. I found that a bit ridiculous because I highly doubt the director (Tom Hooper) would have chosen a cast that couldn't sing for this. 
I'm very fortunate this week as I have GCSE mock exams for school, and my last on the Friday is art. My teacher has set me a very easy picture to do as I'm known for taking my time completing tasks, despite the fact we have 10 hours altogether. I'm certain I'm going to have finished before the Friday exam session, so I'm going to take advantage of my study leave and go to my nearest cinema to watch their first screening of Les Misérables with a friend at 3.30pm! I'm hoping the first screening is going to be full of Les Misérables crazy fans like myself. Just to embarrass my friend, I'm going to be using my breaks between revision whilst on study leave to make a musical-style Enjolras waistcoat to wear to the screening!

25th Anniversary Concert Enjolras

Finally, I'd like to mention something that I read about here. There's a possibility of an extended edition of Les Misérables (I'm guessing on the DVD)! Read about why on the page I've linked. Mention this on anything you can - Twitter (#lesmisextended), in a blog post (like I have here!), I guess even things like art on deviantART (as well as dA journals!) and Youtube videos. Spread the word, show the fan support, and as they said on the deviantART group journal I linked - join the crusade! There's also a petition to sign!

I promise I'll try not to do any more blog posts with only 2-day gaps - I was just too excited about all things Les Misérables to contain myself after reading about the possibility of an extended edition. 

Emma 2009 Costumes

As a lover of Jane Austen's works, once I have read one of her books, I always feel the need to have more. The best way to fill that need? Watch a screen adaptation of course!

My favourite of Austen's main 6 novels is "Emma". As far as I know, there are 4 screen adaptations of it: 2 BBC series, a made-for-TV film by ITV, and the Miramax film (I'll probably make a post about all of them and what I like about each one some day). And since watching it when it was aired back in 2009, I've grown to really love it. Romola Garai (who has also starred as Amelia Sedley in the 2004 "Vanity Fair" and is currently in the BBC series "The Hour" as Bel Rowley) is my favourite Emma by far. However, I didn't make this blog post to talk about why I love that particular series so much, but to show one of the reasons - the costumes!

Emma was published in December 1815. Fashion in 1815 looked like this: 

Compare the above plates to these costumes of the 2009 Emma:

Ball dress

Evening dress

Walking dress

In this adaptation of Emma, there's very few white dresses, as the Ackermann's plates show above. In the costume feature on the DVD (I recommend you buy the DVDs not only for the series but also for the 4 special features on location, costume, music and Mr Woodhouse), the costume designer, Rosalind Ebbutt, says:
"...I started off with the idea that this was a Georgian oil painting using really strong Georgian colours."

When talking about the coat I've put a picture of above, she says:
"This coat was copied from one in the museum in Kyoto." I think the coat she's talking about might be this one:

This coat is the most similar from the Kytoto Institute Online Archives, however the 'skirt' bit is different. Click the picture to see more information about this particular coat.
This coat is labelled as being circa 1810, so I think the costumes weren't designed to be particularly 1815, but just to give a look of the Regency era in general. Personally I think this works well, as it means more freedom in the design, so they can do what they wanted to in making it look like a Georgian oil painting using strong colours.






The ball dress I have put a picture of above is also an interesting piece of costume to learn about. In the special feature, Rosalind Ebbutt says that it was "layers... of different coloured fabric to get this sort of shimmery effect, because one of the things we didn't want to do was to have sort of plain, flat pastels, so, and by doing layers of fabric over one another you get a much more interesting effect when it's lit." I not only find that quote interesting to learn how they made the dress (it really is a beautiful ball gown), but also interesting to show that it also very much matters about how it will look when on film with the lighting changing how it looks slightly, and how they've used this to their advantage to make a beautiful dress look even better.

The last quote I found particularly interesting was: "The idea was that it should look just like real people, set very much in their society, with all different echelons of society, wearing clothes that were interesting and attractive, but that could still be appreciated by the modern eye, whilst remaining true to early 19th century." I think it's a perfect description of the costumes. Emma's are elegant but not necessarily fashionable, and quite simple too, which I think reflects her country life really well. If you watch this series, you'll also see that Harriet's are quite earthy and then start to be almost like copies of what Emma wears. My favourite costumes have to be Mrs Elton's though, as they are so ridiculously extravagant!

First impressions

I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being over-trimmed -- quite a horror of finery...

Dusty country life

I believe a lot of her dresses were actually "recycled" costumes from other costume dramas set in the Regency, however I think that they were picked remarkably well to match the overall look they were going for whilst also representing Mrs Elton's personality and background well. My favourite piece of costume of Mrs Elton's is the above-pictured yellow and pink spencer. Nevermind that it matches Mrs Elton so well - I think it's quite pretty!

I would highly recommend watching this series of Emma. Obviously I have a deep love of the costumes and in my opinion the actors and actresses are very, VERY well chosen for the parts. I know a few people have problems with the script but that's the only complaints about this series I've ever heard. And the costuming feature on the DVD is really interesting to watch and quite useful for any beginner aspiring costumers like myself!

As Promised...

...here's the interesting present and the item I bought whilst in Shropshire!

 My cousin gave me a framed newspaper sheet from 1889. The side seen is above, which displays sketches of the costumes worn by women to a 'Fancy Ball... On behalf of the Chelsea Hospital for Women'. The back of the sheet has the article about the clothes worn to the ball lists what each costume was of. Although I don't like Victorian clothing nearly as much as earlier fashion - Rococo up to Romantic are my favourites - it's still a wonderful source and an amazing Christmas present!




On the day after Boxing Day, we ventured into the nearest town, Ludlow. One visit to Ludlow is always necessary when we visit this set of relatives, often to look at Ludlow Castle and to have tea in DeGrey's. We also have a look-around at all the shops and they're mostly always the same. However, this time round we went to a part of Ludlow that we don't normally go to (I guess because we never have time). There we found a shop full of vintage and antique clothes and items (I saw a Regency watercolour painting that I thought about getting but decided against as our walls are already full of paintings and photos in this house). My mother found a late Victorian blouse so I bought it! As I said above I'm not that much of a fan of Victorian clothing but I really liked this. The woman who was working in the shop then talked to us (my mother mentioned I'm into historical fashion and costuming), and she also told us that the blouse was probably made near the end of the 19th century, but changed around the beginning of the 20th to match the Edwardian fashions.

Sorry for the photo quality - I only have a compact camera. I had to toggle the settings on it every now and then to get the best photo quality but avoid using flash.

I hope you enjoyed looking at these things and if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them! I didn't want to make the post too full of text (also known as me being a bit lazy) but I'll add anything people think I should add.

On another note I hope everyone had a good new year's eve and day and that 2013 is working out well for you already.