Countdown to the Oscars: Best Costume Design

We’re counting down the days until the Academy Awards! We’ll be here, breaking down each of the 23 categories, talking a bit of history, and trying to figure out who is going to win all those gold statues. So check back throughout the next three weeks for Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars.

Best Costume Design

The nominees are:

Babylon

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Elvis

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

My kingdom for a contemporary nominee. Now, technically both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Everything Everywhere All at Once are set in the present day, but both are heavily ensconced in the science-fiction and fantasy worlds. I am talking about the millennial-chic ensembles of the Bodies, Bodies, Bodies cast or the sunny island duds of the Glass Onion crew or even the stark formalism of the TÁR designs. Any would be worthy, but alas, the Costume Designers Branch has bequeathed us with the usual set of period and fantasy nominees.

At least these nominees are pretty fun. None of the traditional royal court frocks that while fairly deserving, often litter this category and push out more interesting and eclectic work. Not so this year, as the branch has seen fit to take us from late 1920s Hollywood to 1950s London and France and back to ‘60 and ‘70s America and finally into fantastical parallel universes. Honestly, it is the most fun this category has been in a long time, maybe since 1991, when Bugsy beat out the varied likes of The Addams Family, Barton Fink, and Hook.

Babylon – What a big, bright, bold, beautiful swing by director Damien Chazelle and costume designer Mary Zophres. These lavish threads bring 1920s Hollywood into full color in ways we have rarely seen, particularly with several of the scene-stealing fashions worn by Margot Robbie’s lead character. That red dress on the posters by itself should be enough to etch this film’s costumes in the memories of filmgoers, but the devil, as always, is in the details. And in this film, Zophres fills the screen with details. Every design is meticulous from the leads on down to the background performers in the afterparty from hell.

This is Zophres’ third collaboration with Chazelle after La La Land and First Man. She is probably best known for her work with the Coen Brothers, working on every one of their films since Fargo in 1996. This is her fourth Academy Award nomination and first since the Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in 2019. She was also nominated for the Coens’ True Grit remake and for Chazelle’s La La Land, which converted six of its record-tying 14 nominations into wins, but not Costume Design.

Elvis – Interestingly, Babylon kind of out-Luhrmanns Baz Luhrmann in this category in the brashness of its costumes, something for which the director’s films are widely touted. This is not to say that Elvis does not feature some of the director’s trademark fashion choices. Catherine Martin, Luhrmann’s wife, has been his production designer on all of his features and costume designer on all of his features since Moulin Rouge!, so it is safe to say she has put her stamp on his work.

Martin has been nominated for nine Academy Awards overall – four for Costume Design, four for Production Design, and one for Best Picture as a producer on Elvis. All of those nominations have come for Luhrmann films, and she has won four Oscars, two for Costume Design and two for Production Design (for the same two films, it should be noted, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby). It would hardly be surprising to see her take home both awards again for Elvis.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – The Marvel Cinematic Universe has garnered 26 Academy Award nominations. Twelve of them have come for the Black Panther franchise (seven for the first film and five for this one). Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are the only MCU films nominated outside the Visual Effects and Makeup categories, apart from a lone Sound Editing nod for the first Iron Man. More impressively, from all those nominations, Black Panther has the only wins, taking home awards for Original Score, Production Design, and Costume Design.

In winning that award, legendary costume designer Ruth E. Carter became the first black woman to win an Oscar in this category (it should be noted production designer Hannah Beachler was the first black person ever to win the Production Design award, doing so for that film, as well). For the sequel, Carter has expanded on the Afrofuturism of the first film to incorporate Mayan and indigenous designs into the costumes of Talokan people. It is visionary work, and it is wonderful to see Carter once again recognized.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – No one told me what this movie was about. I was interested in it when it was in theaters but never made it a priority and didn’t see it until it was nominated for this award. While watching, I realized the entire film is about a nice lady in the mid-20th century who travels to Paris in order to buy a Christian Dior dress essentially from the man himself. There are many fashion walks in the movie, a lot of emphasis placed on costuming, and long stretches where we watch dressmakers work their magic. 

Of course this movie is nominated in this category! I’m not saying it’s not necessarily deserving, but films about fashion often get nominated by this branch, which loves to see itself on screen. And, who can blame them? Case in point, costume designer Jenny Beavan is coming off a win in this category just last year for another fashion-focused feature: Cruella. Beavan has three wins from 11 previous nominations. This is her 12th, and more than likely, the nomination will have to be the reward this time around.

Everything Everywhere All at Once – This film’s genre hopping disguised as universe hopping necessitates a wide range of costumes, from the present-day frump of most of the characters to the elegant, Wong Kar Wai-inspired fashions to the monastic designs of the everything bagel cult. Stephanie Hsu’s misunderstood villain gets the most extravagant fashions, which nominated designer Shirley Kurata intended to subvert and reclaim “Asian-centric tropes,” according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Kurata’s work certainly matches the maximalist style of the whole enterprise while finding subtlety that is sorely lacking in the rest of the film.

The final analysis

You could call this a three-horse race, with Carter hanging in there by virtue of her name and reputation (which is not to say her work is not deserving; it’s just a competitive year). But really, I think this comes down to Elvis and Babylon. If that sounds a little familiar, it’s because in my analysis, the Makeup and Hairstyling category came down to Elvis and The Whale. Be forewarned, a lot of the crafts categories are going to come down to Elvis or something else. It’s all a matter of how much the Academy really just likes Elvis or whether voters will spread the love.

One important thing to note is that unlike other categories, Best Picture heat doesn’t seem to mean a lot to the winner of Costume Design. It’s just as often that a Picture nominee loses to a non-Picture nominee here – far more so than any other craft category. For this reason, I give the slight edge to Babylon, which features the kind of bold, colorful costumes the Academy tends to favor in this category. Carter is a threat, but it’s likely the Academy feels it has already rewarded that franchise with this award and might not recognize everything new Carter is bringing to the table.

Depending on when this award is handed out, this could be a fascinating bellwether for the other crafts categories. Babylon is absolutely in the running for all three awards for which it is nominated, and if it wins here, it could go 3-for-3. If Elvis wins, we could be in for a long night of that film picking up craft award after craft award, a la Dune last year or Mad Max: Fury Road in years past.

Will win: Babylon

Should win: Babylon

Should have been here: Women Talking

A note about my favorite snub: I know I called out a bunch of contemporary designs up top, but I cannot get over the brilliance of Quita Alfred’s costumes in Women Talking. They are so subtle and intricate that they might be easy to overlook, but make no mistake, Alfred’s work is integral to the film’s disorienting, unsettling effect. Beautiful stuff.

Next time: Cinematography