Mockingjay and Costume Design: Real or not Real?

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

In terms of costume design, first two Hunger Games movies never quite lived up to my expectations. It wasn't that the costumes were bad -- far from it -- but they seemed far too homogeneous. Given free rein to create the most outlandish designs imaginable, the Capitol fashjons were disappointingly conservative and homogeneous.

Mockingjay, Part 1 was another matter entirely. With no Hunger Games, Capitol makeovers, or District 12, the story focused on Panem's growing revolution, shown through the eyes of the propaganda war between the Capitol and District 13. Before the film even came out, YouTube propaganda clips began to illustrate the calculated nature of President Snow's public image.

Mockingjay flipped the cliché of dark and light, with the villainous President Snow surrounding himself with pure white to match his signature white roses. His brainwashed prisoners Peeta (dressed in an uncharacteristically stiff suit and a painful-looking white paper collar) and Johanna presented a united front, fitting in with Snow's clean, luxurious aesthetic. Meanwhile Katniss, daughter of coal miners, wears black body armour and fatigues.

In the earlier films, this kind of contrast was meant to highlight Katniss's salt-of-the-earth nature with Snow's obsessively controlled image, but this time it's more complex. Katniss may look more practical and less "styled" than Snow and his entourage, but that's because her District 13 stylists decided this was the best way to market her to the rebels. Her Mockingjay armor (in real life, modeled off a Japanese archery breastplate) was designed for her by Cinna, and continues the asymmetrical theme of previous outfits she wore to public appearances.

Each Hunger Games film has a different costume designer, which I'm beginning to think was a very smart idea. I found The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky) to be overly simplistic, but the filmmakers probably didn't want to take too many risks when first introducing the setting. The costumes of Catching Fire (Trish Summerville) were closer to what I'd hoped for, but they still had to adhere to the visual themes set up by the first film. But as Mockingjay branches out into the wider world of Panem, more avenues open up for interesting work by the new costume designers Kurt and Bart, who previously worked on the wonderful Stoker.

Visually, District 13 felt a lot more coherent than the Capitol ever did. My issue with Capitol fashion is that while the costumes were gorgeous, they all had an oddly similar aesthetic -- something that didn't make sense when you consider the furious competition between stylists. District 13, on the other hand, has a perfect excuse for everyone to look the same: It's a military bunker where citizens are given food, clothing and shelter by the state, and where luxury items are rationed. The end result is a utilitarian grey uniform that reflects the stern practicality of President Coin's leadership.

Uniforms and bland, drab costumes are an easy way to illustrate a certain type of dystopian setting. Given the right encouragement and/or legal obligation, most people probably would agree to wear the same uniform every day, especially if they think it's for the greater good. However, there's always someone who can't bear to look the same as everyone else, which is why I'm so fond of Effie Trinket's new costumes.

Dragged away from her life in the Capitol, Effie quickly begins to modify her District 13 fatigues until she's got a collection of grey turbans and capes. Even the way she wears her shirt is different from the neat and practical appearance of characters like Beetee and Plutarch. She simply cannot bear to not look her best.

Between Snow, Katniss, and District 13, we have a white/black/grey color scheme that contrasts beautifully with the rainbow of luxurious costumes we saw in the first two movies -- and each one of these design themes has a solid foundation in the film's worldbuilding. Katniss is dressed in black by Plutarch and Effie, in armor that was designed by Cinna to make her look like the perfect Mockinjay. President Snow is dressed in pure white to offset the filth of the Districts, and the people of District 13 are proud to give up their individuality in favor of wearing the uniform of the revolution, all working hard for what they believe to be a better tomorrow.

For me, the most satisfying aspect of Mockingjay's costumes was the constant theme of "real or not real." The first two movies were already obsessed with authenticity (Katniss and Peeta faking their relationship for the cameras; the sinister glamour of the Capitol's propaganda machine), but Mockingjay upped its game.

Along with Katniss, we begin to realize that nothing is "real." When Katniss sings the Hanging Tree song, that brief moment of genuine emotion is recorded, remixed, and broadcast to budding revolutionaries out in the Districts. Her image as the Mockingjay was designed by Cinna and propped up by clever camera work. Even the goal-oriented practicality of District 13 is arguably the result of propaganda. And so, while I love the costumes of Mockingjay in their own right, their greatest strength is their ability to make the audience think about why characters wear what they do. Instead of just being beautiful or helping build characterization, Mockingjay's costumes are a central aspect of the film's worldbuilding, and constantly demand our attention.

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

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Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

Previously: Capitol Couture in The Hunger Games.

Capitol Couture is back, but I'm a lot less optimistic about it than I was last time round. Although I love the Hunger Games books and thought the first movie was an excellent adaptation, the costumes leave much to be desired. I'd hoped that they might kick the weirdness up a notch after the relatively tame aesthetic of the first movie, but these publicity images seem to imply the opposite. From Star Trek to Blade Runner, futuristic sci-fi offers an opportunity to dream up some seriously interesting clothes that often end up influencing real-world fashion trends, but most of the costumes in the Hunger Games could easily be from everyday photoshoots of the actors.

Katniss Everdeen

In the books, a great deal of emphasis is put upon the lavish eccentricities of the people who live in the Capitol. On top of that, all the Tributes have stylists whose job it is to make them look as unique and eyecatching as possible. Why, then, did all the costumes in the first movie look like they'd been bought at the same store? And why are the promo pictures for Catching Fire so damn similar? Katniss, Effie and Johanna are all wearing some variety of frilly Alexander McQueen gown, while almost all of the men are wearing some type of suit.

Effie Trinket

In response to my review of the first movie, someone pointed out that the reason why so many extras in the Capitol look alike is because Effie Trinket is a trend-setter. This is a definite possibility, but we have to remember that during the first book/film, Effie Trinket is upwardly-mobile but not yet famous. She's the representative for one of the least interesting Districts, and presenting Peeta and Katniss to the Capitol is her big break. Considering the similarity between her clothes and the rainbow-coloured outfits of other characters in the first movie, it's more likely that she's following the extreme end of a particular fashion trend -- but even that, to me, seems slightly out of character.

Peeta Mellark

The Capitol is explicitly written as a society where appearance is key. Because Capitol citizens live off the wealth of the Districts, most of them don't "need" jobs, eliminating the direct connection between money and fashion. People try to look as individual as possible, because the ultimate status symbol is for people to applaud your originality as a trend-setter. To be a successful style icon in the Capitol, one must look fresh and new, have an easily recogniseable personal "brand", and be willing to put a great deal of effort into one's appearance -- including body modification. Effie's costumes would be perfect if they existed in a vaccuum, but their resemblance to the costumes of background extras detracts hugely from the overall effect.

Johanna Mason

Catching Fire introduces a whole new cast of Tribute characters, and their District-themed costumes should, in theory, give each one an opportunity to stand out. The most interesting outfits probably won't be revealed until the movie is released, but the pictures we've seen so far don't exactly fill me with confidence. Johanna Mason, who is portrayed in the books as looking spiky-haired, shameless, and implicitly butch, is wearing what looks like a bridesmaid's dress for Katniss' wedding. This outfit doesn't convey one iota of Johanna's personality or role in the movie, either within the context of the story (where she has her own stylist) or as a marketing image for the movie itself.

Gale

President Snow

Among the pictures we've seen so far, my favourites are probably Peeta, Beetee and Cinna. Cinna is relatively easy because his style is so subdued and cool, and Lenny Kravitz may or may not literally just be wearing his own clothes for the role. Peeta's costumes are good for similar reasons, because his aesthetic role is to complement Katniss rather than stand out. His image is "cute farmboy", and he knows it, so it makes sense for the Capitol stylists to dress him in comparatively simple outfits. As for Beetee, I enjoy the way the fabric of his waistcoat and trousers looks a little like circuit boards.

Beetee

Caesar Flickerman

Cinna

Finnick Odair is kind of an impossible character. In a movie full of attractive people in stylish outfits, he has to outshine all of them with his incandescent hotness. But even taking those difficult expectations into account, I'm not all that impressed by Sam Claflin -- partly because his name makes me think "COL = Claflin Out Loud", and partly because he's so blandly good-looking that I couldn't pick him out of a lineup of Taylor Kitsch lookalikes. (See this amazing Tumblr post about Jesse Williams as Finnick. WE COULDA HAD IT ALLLLL.) Hopefully his actual performance will be imbued with a Veela-like sexiness, but right now I'm not really feeling it. That being said, I do rather like his ocean-themed outfit, which is far more District-appropriate than any of the other new Tribute pictures we've seen so far. I could be wrong, but the sarong/trousers he wears look a bit like Thai fisherman's trousers?

Finnick Odair

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Capitol Couture in The Hunger Games.

It's a little late for a review of the Hunger Games movie itself, so in summary: I thought it was an excellent adaptation, and the few things I did have a problem with (too much exposition from the Games commentators; too many important and/or traumatising details cut from the book) were understandable for reasons of making the film accessible to a wider audience. I've had a few people ask me if I'm going to write about the costumes, and yes, I'm finally getting round to it, although you may not all agree with the result. For a film adaptation of a book that has so much to say about fashion, vanity, and the immediate visual differences between social classes, the costumes in The Hunger Games could've been a lot better.

I'm not suggesting moment that the Capitol costumes didn't look fantastic. It's the background concept I have a problem with. Effie Trinket, the first person we see from the Capitol, was perfect. Her purpose is to illustrate the huge chasm between Katniss' life in the impoverished District 12, and the thoughtlessly cruel frivolity enjoyed by the people who dwell in the Capitol. Even though Effie has more contact with people from the worker districts than most Capitol citizens do, she still has very little understanding of how they live or the fact that the Capitol is so widely loathed and resented. There's no possibility of any common ground between her and a girl who has to illegally hunt with a bow and arrow in order to save her family from starvation.

Katniss has higher priorities than caring about the way she looks. (One thing I would've appreciated in this film would've been if Katniss had actually had leg hair prior to her Capitol makeover.) She's a very angry person, raging against the Capitol and the way her friends and family are forced to live, but quiet about it because stoicism and practicality are the only way for her to survive. Effie is the polar opposite of this: superficial, thoughtless, and impractical to the degree that she can barely walk in her tight skirts and heels.

Elizabeth Banks and her costume/makeup people created a wonderfully faithful version of this character. Both visually and in terms of her performance, she embodies everything Katniss hates about the Capitol: the frothyness, the frivolity, the conspicious consumption and wastefulness. She also has a very distinctive personal style: the puffy hair, sleeves and accessories, the narrow waists of her jackets and the excessive colour-coordination. Unlike in many futuristic/sci-fi movies where people wear improbably costumes with no thought for budget or practicality, we know that Effie has a team of consultants and makeup artists to help her look that way.

For me, the problem with the Hunger Games' costumes begins once we move past Effie Trinket and into the Capitol itself. Effie is a perfect example both of a character whose costumes fit perfectly with their personality  and lifestyle, and of a character who is image-obsessed to the detriment of everything else. Now, both from descriptions in the novels and the impression we get of the Capital in general, the appearance of other Capitol citizens should run along those lines as well: strong personal styles, coupled with extremely high-impact, high-budget clothes. The problem is that the background characters look too much like Effie Trinket.

When Katniss and Peeta first enter the Capitol they experience severe culture shock, partially thanks to the outlandish appearance of its citizens. In the film, this works fairly well but only because the clothes worn by the extras and secondary characters are so colourful when compared to the muted greys and browns of District 12. However, the fundamental reason why the Capitol citizens look the way they do is because they're part of a society where people are rich, have too much time on their hands, and hugely overvalue personal appearance. Even taking into account the fact that many people are followers rather than trendsetters, the overall effect of the Capitol costumes is the assumption that colour-matching, dyed hair, puffy sleeves and narrow waists are the Capitol equivalent of jeans-and-a-t-shirt. It removes Effie Trinket's impact because it characterises her as just another slavish follower of a universal trend.

Fashion is self-expression. It may be molded by trends and designers, but in a culture where everyone has a huge amount of disposable income to spend on self-augmentation and bespoke clothes, everyone should look far more different from one another than they did here. The girl pictured above could easily be Effie Trinket 20 years ago. The woman in the picture below, with her curled and coloured hair and elaborate fascinator, could be Effie in 20 years time. Excluding the possibility that these women are both Effie Trinket fangirls, we shouldn't be seeing this type of uniformity. Take a look at any busy urban street in real life. Is every person wearing the same fashion trends? No. A hundred years they might have been, but only because clothes were far slower and more difficult to make.

In the Capitol, outrageousness is praised and admired. This isn't a world of high-end couture fans whose style is dictated by Fashion Week; a far better analogy would be the urban tribes of the Harajuku district in Tokyo. The Harajuku kids dressing in Lolita, Visual Kei and Club Kid styles identify with those subcultures and put a lot of time and effort into the way they look, as should the people of the Capitol. The Capitol may be isolated from the outside influences that inspire new social/fashion trends in real-life cities, but the Capitol's constant obsession with public image, stylists and reality TV should outweigh that purely because there would be so many competing designers. But despite the extravagance of what we see in the Capitol scenes, there's very little sense that these people are setting out to express their own individuality.

Several reviews namechecked Lady Gaga because she's the current buzzword for over-the-top dressing, but Capitol fashions only reach the level Gaga maintains for a casual trip to the airport or a baseball game, not the full-on meat dress extravaganza she puts on for major events. In the third Hunger Games book, there's a shop that caters to people who take on animal characteristics, the owner herself having had her body augmented to look like a tiger. This is a weird example even by Capitol standards, but when do we see anything even approaching this in the movie? Where's the extreme plastic surgery? Where are the facial tattoos and metal flesh inlays described in the book? Why are all the women so feminine, and the men dressed in some version of a suit? Where are the goths? Where are the people whose fashion identity is tied up in some other subculture, like medical fetishism, or sportswear, or plant-matter, or faux poverty? Because you know that in a priveleged yet socially ignorant culture like this, there will be people who ape the poorer the Districts by doing something like dressing in stylised rags.

When choosing extras for the background scenes in the Capitol, they might have been better off doing an open casting call for fans wearing what they thought of as Capitol fashions. Or giving a bunch of money to some of the more out-there Etsy designers or Camden Market/Harajuku clothing companies, so as to come up with a more disparate selection of "weird" styles. Hopefully in the later movies we'll see a wider variety of extremes instead of this single overarching theme of brightly-coloured formalwear.

Links

Hunger Games Fashion -- Various behind-the-scenes articles from the Hunger Games movie's costume and makeup team.

Capitol Couture -- Viral marketing site set up before the film's release, showcasing various Capitol fashions and characters.

Grey, by Jon Armstrong -- Like The Hunger Games, this novel takes place in a very priveleged and image-obsessed city, although this time round the protagonist is from the Capitol. It's a great portrayal of extreme subcultures and reality TV/internet fandom, the main character being an obsessive fan of grey suits, intense minimalism, and a "competitive ironer" who is famous for ironing shirts in a particularly sharp manner.

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Sheguang Hu, and why The Hunger Games' Capitol should've looked more like Beijing Fashion Week.

Beijing Fashion Week rarely makes it to mainstream American/British fashion magazines and blogs, and coverage outside of highlight galleries seems to be nigh-on impossible to find. Which is too bad, because if you enjoy truly out-there couture (which I do) then Beijing is streets ahead of Paris at the moment. Although designers like McQueen are still regularly turning out excellent couture shows, I've found that many of the major fashion houses on the London/Paris/Milan/NYC circuit have been noticeably lacklustre over the last few years.

photos from here.

Autumn/Winter 2012/13
Last month's Sheguang Hu show in Beijing was gothic and alarming, and filled with expressive and over-the-top millinary.

I loved the fabric used for this dress. Hundreds of tiny, mournful faces printed onto the fabric, acting as a counterpoint to the aggressive metal spikes on the belt and shoulder-straps. This entire collection was about combining conservative, relatively simple silhouettes with extravagant detail work. Although a few elements of fetishwear and classic goth/punk looks were included, they were far more subtle and less cliched than those found in most "dark" collections.

One of the reasons why I took such a shine to Sheguang Hu is that he shares my love of upholstery fabrics. In general I think florals are vastly overused in almost every area of fashion design, but when they're a) used in the context of an aggressively structured outfit like the one pictured below, or b) printed or embroidered in the style of pre-1900s fabric designs, then I approve. Another thing I've noticed about Huang's designs is that although he's very fond of the ever-favoured super-slim fitted dress, he does include quite a few more forgiving cuts -- something that's doubly unusual in couture shows, because couture is so obviously not created to appeal to general audiences. But the suit below would work on a variety of women's body shapes.

Spring/Summer 2012
For contrast, I'm including some of my favourites from last season's collection as well. A lot of designers don't vary much from season to season (not necessarily a bad thing -- for example, Gareth Pugh makes clothes exclusively for fetish robots who never go outside or, indeed, breathe, eat or walk anywhere, so "seasons" are completely arbitrary) but Sheguang Hu's Spring and Fall 2012 collections were very different.

Spring/Summer photos from here.

Sheguang Hu moved to Amsterdam as a teenager, studied design there, and now owns a store in the city. I think there are definite European influences in his work, but those influences seem to stem from the fashions of three or four hundred years ago. It reminds me a little of Vivienne Westwood, in fact -- pastiches on the theme of neck-ruffs, Tudor corsets and heavily embroidered fabrics, but never anything that actually resembles period costume.

This candy-pink dress is strictly fairytale, but manages to avoid venturing into Harajuku territory thanks to the huge, robe-like sleeves and simple silhouette.

One of my favourite outfits of the entire collection. It combines the full sleeves of a 16th century gentleman's padded cloth "armour" doublet with a more feminine bodice and modern trousers, creating a shape and aesthetic that overall fails to identify with any era. This look reminded me very much of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, although perhaps that's partially down to the slightly Tilda Swintonish redhaired model.

Looking at many of the highlights from Beijing Fashion Week I not only mourn the comparative tameness of recent Paris/London/etc Couture shows, I find myself getting slightly annoyed at the Hunger Games movie. I haven't posted about it here on Hello, Tailor (yet) but I must admit I found the supposedly-extravagant costumes of the Capitol unexpectedly disappointing. There was a fair amount of pre-movie viral marketing centred around the Capitol fashions, but when it came to the film itself I realised that many of the most prominent costumes had already been revealed, and the bar for outlandishness was nowhere near as high as I'd expected. I'm not saying I disliked the costumes, but I am hoping they edge more towards the Nicki Minaj/Sheguang Hu/Alexander McQueen end of the scale in the sequels as opposed to the brightly coloured but ultimately uninspiring looks we saw this time round.

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