Costume design, JK Rowling's new Harry Potter movie, and the wizarding fashions of 1920s New York.

JK Rowling announced yesterday that she's teaming up with Warner Brothers to make a new series of Harry Potter movies, instantly causing the the top of my head to flip open with excitement. The HP books shaped my childhood, and my love of the series was recently rekindled when I got to report at LeakyCon London Harry Potter convention last month. The prospect of an entirely new story set in the wizarding universe already has me grinding valium into my martini. STAY CHILL, SELF. IT WON'T BE OUT FOR ANOTHER TWO YEARS. We need to set up a Harry Potter-related group therapy session, stat.

The new movie(s) will focus on Newt Scamander, the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the definitive textbook on magical creatures. He already seems to me like an ideal choice of protagonist, because he has a strong connection to the wizarding universe but no real link to the events of the Harry Potter series. I'd be very leery of a Harry Potter spinoff that seemed to act as a prequel or sequel to the series itself, but I feel like JKR is pretty unlikely to do that anytime soon. Most interestingly, the Fantastic Beasts movie will take place 70 years prior to Harry Potter (ie, the 1920s), and begins in New York. I'm already brimming with speculation over what this means in terms of worldbuilding and, of course, how the costumes are going to look.
The Harry Potter books are so utterly British (and JK Rowling is so amazing at writing about the British class system) that I'm already enthralled by the idea of a story about a former Hogwarts student in New York City. We learn virtually nothing about American magical culture in the books, which is probably on purpose because it's best not to think too hard about the concept of an international wizarding community. Like, why do other countries never intervene when a tiny racist cult is going around killing people and taking over the government in the UK? My personal assumption was that Britain is seen as so backward and eccentric compared to the rest of the wizarding world, that other countries have a total non-intervention policy. Considering Britain's disastrous muggle/wizarding conflicts, class system, and inexplicable decision to segregate all children by personality type at age eleven, it hardly feels like a place that's very in touch with the outside world. Well done, you put all the ruthlessly ambitious kids together in a school house that's known for producing dark wizards and racist fanatics. What could possibly go wrong? Without the "benefit" of the Hogwarts house system, who knows what wizarding society would be like.

There are a few things we can expect from the setting of 1920s New York. The most obvious, to me, is greater racial diversity than we saw among the main cast of the HP films. While the books are open to interpretation, the movies are very white when it comes to speaking roles, particularly among the adult characters. The casting generally defaulted to white unless the character is explicitly described as otherwise (ie, Kingsley Shacklebolt), which is partly down to the semi-accidental racism of almost all movies casting white actors by default. The other reason is that the books give the impression of being set in ~historical~ England.
Even though Hogwarts is in the Scottish Highlands and the main storyline takes place in the 1990s, the overall feel is that of an English boarding school adventure story, a genre that largely focuses on the period on either side of WWII. The only other major locations are London and Hogsmeade, both of which seem decidedly Dickensian and pretty distant from the multicultural world of 21st century cities. Hogwarts feels like a 60-year-old story taking place in a medieval castle, while general wizarding society has something approaching a 19th-century class structure. The only three wizarding households we see are Malfoy Manor (literally a manor; owned by aristocrats), The Burrow (just outside a small village in Devon), and Grimauld Place (a decaying Victorian town house). None of these exactly scream "modern, multicultural Britain". If Hogwarts had been located in central London during the same time period, it would've been harder to get away with casting almost everyone as white.

While English boarding schools, rural manor houses and Dickensian London all inspire certain ideas of how characters and stories "should" look, 1920s New York gives us entirely different expectations: flappers, jazz, gangsters, the Harlem Rennaissance, and the Great Gatsby. Plus, having read the mystery novel that JKR recently published under a pseudonym, I'd say that she's listened to criticism since the HP books were written, and puts a lot more thought into writing diverse range of characters. Either way, I'm gonna be majorly disappointed if the Fantastic Beasts movie doesn't include at least one scene where clueless Hufflepuff Newt Scamander wanders into a wizarding jazz bar and/or encounters some kind of prohibition-esque NYC hijinks. Also, there must SURELY be at least one black market magical creature smuggler in this movie, right? (CAST TOM HARDY IN THIS ROLE. CAST TOM HARDY IN THIS ROLE.)
Thinking abuot JKR's transition from page to screen, I'm curious to see what happens with regards to worldbuilding. The later HP films are genuinely good, and I think it's safe to assume that Fantastic Beasts will be of a similar tone (ie not a "children's film"), but much of the enjoyment for HP fans comes from the fact that we're aware of the extended universe behind the movies. Sure, there are plenty of people who never read the books, or read the books after watching the films, but JKR's strength lies in attention to detail, specifically when it comes to worldbuilding and minor side-characters. The HP universe is so rich and complex that every chapter contains some new spell or backstory detail or minor character, and all of them are interesting enough to warrant their own story. But you really can't get that level of detail in a film. I can imagine JKR getting frustrated at the limitations of writing a screenplay, but who knows. She spent a decade consulting on the original movie series, so she's hardly a novice.
When it comes to costumes, I'm hoping that Fantastic Beasts looks drastically different from the Harry Potter series. Obviously 1920s NYC is pretty distant from a medieval castle full of teenagers in the 1990s, but the historical setting may be a hindrance because the HP series already looks like a historical drama. The costume designers did an amazing job, but they were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to transferring wizarding fashions from book to film. The robes in the books are described as being an entire outfit (rather than a sort of optional overcoat, which is how they look in the movies), with most people also wearing pointy hats. Wizarding styles were intended to be so different from muggle clothes that pureblood wizards don't even understand muggle fashion, with some wizards even having a problem with the concept of trousers. But it's difficult to transfer this look to a movie set in present-day Britain, because most characters would look so weird that audiences might find it distracting. So the designers had to think of other ways to set traditional wizarding fashion apart from the muggle world.
Even the robes worn by older witches and wizards are often close to just being a three piece suit or a dress, aside from especially "magical" characters like Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape. Lucius Malfoy may be a traditionalist but his leather battle robes are an exception, with most of his costumes looking like a cross between an old-fashioned suit and a costume from a historical drama. The most common style among wizarding characters is some kind of normal-looking outfit with a robe-like coat over the top, while "dress robes" are just muggle eveningwear with the men's outfits taking on a slightly 19th-century aesthetic.

In my opinion the most well-designed "traditional" wizarding outfit is the original Quidditch robes, while the Hogwarts uniform is basically a normal British school shirt-and-tie uniform with an academic/graduation gown instead of the blazer. And hardly anyone wears a hat, because it's difficult to identify with a teenage everyman hero when he's wearing a pointy hat and an ankle-length gown. Even the casual clothes worn by Harry, Ron and Hermione have changed from book to film, I think. I always felt like the clothes worn by the kids in the books implicitly fit in with the boarding school aesthetic (ie, nonspecifically mid-20th century non-fashions, like wearing knit sweaters all the time), while the movie updates them to wear more contemporary outfits like jeans, hoodies, and t-shirts. I'd be interested to know whether the appearance of characters and costumes in the earlier film adaptations actually changed the way JKR described them in the later books.

Continued in Part 2.

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Les Miserables: Seriously, Javert? Seriously??

At the very end of its theatrical release schedule, I have finally gone to see Les Miserables. To be honest, I'm pretty impressed with myself because I managed to remain completely information-free about the whole thing. As in, I knew nothing whatsoever about the book, the musical or the movie prior to actually watching it. In fact, here is the sum total of my Les Mis background knowledge as of this morning.

• It's a musical.
• It's set in France.
• Anne Hathaway plays a prostitute who gets her hair cut off for some reason
• There are some cute young guys that Tumblr seems excited about. They might be revolutionaries?

Also, I sort of assumed that because it was categorised in my head as "a musical", there would be a) some spoken dialogue, and b) dancing. Wrong on both counts, but NBD.
Anyway, it was definitely the movie to watch if you like your onscreen emotions turned up to 11 on the Overwrought-o-meter, and are OK with the camera being rammed up Hugh Jackman's nose at all times. Like seriously, chill out with the close-ups. People had actually warned me about this beforehand and I was all, "No, what do I know about cinematography? I won't notice." But no, I noticed. It was like someone's parents were there with a camcorder, trying to zoom in on every important moment of their kid's school play. ZOOM IN MORE ON ANNE HATHAWAY'S SNOTTY NOSE WHILE SHE'S CRYING!! ZOOM IN MORE ON HUGH JACKMAN'S FACE WHILE HE'S EMOTING ABOUT GOD!! ZOOM IN MORE ON THIS TRAGIC STARVING KID WHO DOESN'T HAVE ANY FACIAL SORES LIKE THE OTHER KIDS, BECAUSE SHE'S THE STAR! etc etc.
The main thing I got from Les Mis, though, was that Russell Crowe's Javert is A+++ hilarious. Like, every time he came onscreen I started laughing uncontrollably because he was 100% straight-up doing an impression of when Harry was obsessively stalking Draco in Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince. JAVERT JUST REALLY WANTS TO CHAIN UP THAT TALL, SWEATY, MUSCULAR CRIMINAL, OK? HE WANTS TO CHAIN HIM UP AND CONTROL HIM AND PUNISH HIM FOR HIS SINS

I couldn't help imagining what all the other cops must think of Javert. Javert thinks he's the most upstanding, hard-working, god-fearing guy in the entire police force, but the other cops totally talk about him behind his back: Do you know that Inspector Javert guy who always looks like he hasn't showered in a week, and stands slightly too close when he's talking to you? Yeah, yeah, he's literally been stalking this random ex-con for like thirty fucking years. Not like a murderer or anything. This guy stole some bread and now Javert's all up in his grill, following him around the country, I don't even know. One time I went to his house to pick up some paperwork and it was just a mattress bed on the floor with Wanted posters of Jean Valjean taped all over the walls, the ceiling, the windows, every-fucking-where. Some things you just don't want to know, you know?

Aside from the roiling tide of Javert's sweat and/or self-loathing obsession with that evil, villainous thief who totally has the muscle power to lift an entire cart on one shoulder, I... guess there was some other stuff in the movie? Like, Anne Hathaway was good but I wouldn't personally have given her an Oscar for Fantine. But then again, I would have given her an Oscar for Rachel Getting Married in 2009, so all's well that ends well. I admit I started to feel a little tired whenever Helena Bonham Carter came onscreen, because she really does play herself in every role now, and not necessarily in a good way. Philosophically speaking I don't have anything against never brushing your hair, but if you're an actor it's kind of helpful to look slightly different in each role, you know? Whereas Helena Bonham Carter, charming though she is, looks like she's been wearing her own clothes, hair and makeup in every role she's played in the past 5 years.
Someone who knows more about the literary merits and background of Les Mis will probably have to explain to me just what the impact of the story is meant to be. Perhaps I'm a pessimist, but all I thought when I came out of the cinema was "revolutions are pointless, and there are definitely going to be food poverty riots in real life, near where I live, in the near future". The fact is that I don't actually think revolutions/direct action/political protests are pointless in the slightest, but all the cute young idealist boys in Les Mis certainly were hideously familiar. Particularly Marius. It's very difficult to warm to a poor-little-rich-boy character in a movie where are starving on the streets in every scene -- even if he does have cute freckles and the guileless expression of an anime character.

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Chanel Pre-Fall 2013: Lagerfeld, King of Scots?

Click here for previous Chanel posts.

As a Scot, I can be kind of snobbish about supposedly Scottish-themed fashion shows. However, this season's Chanel managed to avoid any of the expected ugly-tartan pitfalls and turned out to be just as spectacular as last year's Pre-Fall India collection. I suspect this is partly down to the fact that Karl Lagerfeld has the luxury of visiting Imaginary Scotland, which is significantly different from Real Scotland in that it primary contains castles and expensive whisky rather junkies, mud, and football hooliganism. Had it not been snowing on the night of the show, I can only assume that Lagerfeld would've hired kilt-wearing male models to grate ice-cubes onto the audience from the parapets above.

pics from Style.com

One of the problems with the backwards nature of fashion seasons is that when you're looking at Summer clothes it's usually Winter in real life, meaning that one's critical faculties are occasionally taken over by thoughts like: "WHY would anyone want to wear a floral miniskirt when everything is so damn cold?" Not so in this case, wherein the "Pre-Fall" (ie, Summer, as we would say in non-Fashionese) collection looks entirely suitable for the weather we're having in real life. I found it immensely comforting to know that all the models striding through the chilly hallways of Linlithgow castle got to wear flat shoes and blankets instead of looking knock-kneed and frostbitten as they so often do.

Lagerfeld's inspiration was a combination of Scottish history (specifically Mary Queen of Scots, who was born at Linlithgow castle) and Chanel heritage. Coco Chanel herself had close ties to Scotland, as she often stayed at the Scottish home of her lover the Duke of Westminster, and learned much about tweed and knitwear from the local clothing manufacturers. In fact, many of her masculine-styled suits were inspired by clothes she saw while on hunting parties in Scotland. The result of these two very different Scottish influences was a show mixing 16th century styles (MY FAVE; don't get me started on my love of pantaloons) and more typical (but still exquisite) knitwear and tweed outfits.

The reason for the unusual location this season was not due to a Lagerfeldian whim, for all that he embraced the Scottish theme. Over the past few years, Chanel has been producing collections honouring each of its offshoot workshops in turn. This year it's Scotland's Barrie Knitwear, which has been working with Chanel for decades but was only recently acquired by them (saving the company from liquidation, I believe).

I loved the warmth and layering in the more modern, street-style outfits. Lagerfeld can be very concerned with thinness (as a contrast to the traditionally boxy Chanel silhouette) so it was a welcome change to see these rather more padded-out styles. In some ways, several of them reminded me of traditional Russian and Eastern European-inspired designs such as those of Ulyana Sergeenko, possibly they acknowledge the existence of cold-weather clothes other than peacoats and cardigans.

I love both these outfits, even though neither are exactly my style. The above outfit has clear Mary Queen Of Scots-era inspirations in the form of the split-front skirt, whereas the outfit below is 100% mid-century Scottish Laird's wife.

OF COURSE my favourite section of the show was the series of outfits with clear links to the padded faux-armour of the 16th century. In most cases puffball skirts replaced outright pantaloons, but I loved the jackets tailored to resemble doublets, as well as all the ruff-like collars.

Oh, another detail I really appreciated about this show -- flat shoes. "Practical" isn't really something one expects from Chanel (especially Lagerfeld's Chanel), but this show proved that high-end designer clothes can be both interesting and comfortable.

Rather than the single traditional wedding dress at the end of the show, there was an entire final phase of white gowns -- all of them warm and taking certain elements of inspiration from Renaissance-era Scotland.

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Costume design and "The Hour": Bel Rowley and Freddie Lyon.

(N.B. This post is mostly about costumes so I've tried to keep it as spoiler-free as possible. There are a couple of minor characterisation spoilers, but nothing plot-related for either season.)

I recently mainlined the entire six-episode first season of The Hour, and it quickly rocketed to the top of my list of Best Historical Dramas Ever. Basically, it is flawless. I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty easy when it comes to overtly feminist historical dramas, but while The Bletchley Circle is great, The Hour goes a lot deeper than a three-episode crime show could ever manage. On top of working with the intriguing premise of the birth of TV journalism, the main characters are all beautifully three-dimensional and interact with the same levels of humour and emotional complexity as seen in The Good Wife. 
I love the way The Hour manages to integrate an obsessive attention to historical detail with a few necessary elements of romanticisation. They sourced period-specific pencils for the characters to use on set, but at the same time the basic concept of the show relies upon a 28-year-old woman being the producer of the BBC's flagship news programme. Obviously in 1956 this would be impossible but The Hour makes it effortlessly believable, and Bel's relationship with the two male leads -- Freddie the writer and Hector the presenter -- is the heart and soul of the show. As for historical detail, The Hour bears most of the hallmarks of a classic thriller about journalism, censorship and government conspiracies, and the topics Freddie and Bel investigate are very well chosen. The first season focuses on Cold War paranoia in London while the Suez Crisis rages on overseas, and I'm already obsessed with the amount of historical detail going in the background of season 2. Freddie, Bel and Hector are currently looking into corruption and vice in Soho, and we're already starting to see hints of Rachmanism and precursers to the Profumo Affair -- even though in 1957, all that was still unknown to the general public.
The mid-50s are a great period for costume design because this was the point when personal style really became A Thing, particularly for women. As well as the classic image of the 1950s housewife with her wardrobe of  frothy skirts and brightly-coloured cocktail dresses, this was the advent of fashions specifically aimed at women in the workplace. And while most of the main characters in The Hour are career-driven adults, there are still occasional appearances from 1950s teen subcultures like Teddy Boys or leather-clad rockers. It's interesting to look at the aesthetic of The Bletchley Circle and compare it to The Hour, since both seem authentic and yet are so obviously different. The Bletchley Circle takes place four years earlier than The Hour and the characters are still rooted in the styles of wartime rationing, so they look very drab when compared to richer and more image-conscious women like Bel Rowley or Marnie Madden.

Bel's costumes run to a strict work uniform of form-fitting pencil skirt suits and brightly coloured jersey dresses. She actually has a couple of near-identical outfits in block colours, indicating that she knows what suits to her and sticks to it. A practical consideration, when you remember that she works in the relatively conservative environment of the BBC in 1956. Obviously Bel wants to look good but there are no hints of frivolity in her appearance, for all that she's usually colourful and eye-catching. Outside work we only really see her wearing vampy cocktail dresses, which she suits amazingly well because Romola Garai has such a great hourglass figure. Unlike a lot of the other female characters she doesn't often wear makeup, and there are several scenes where we see her changing outfits very quickly -- the benefits of an efficient capsule wardrobe, as it would nowadays be called. Bel enjoys the effects of looking attractive and stylish, but doesn't really "dress up" in the same way girlier characters like Marnie Madden do. In fact she has what could be interpreted as a traditionally masculine attitude towards dressing, since she basically constructed her own equivalent of the formulaic suits her male colleagues wear every day.
When it comes to costuming, Freddie and Bel are a real odd-couple pair. In season 1 Freddie's slightly scruffy appearance is all part of his role as a maverick at the BBC, and indicates his refusal to buy into the kind of conventionality Hector Madden effortlessly represents. Ben Whishaw's skinny frame lends itself well to gawkiness and youth, but Freddie is far from nervous. In fact he's kind of a bantamweight fighter, doggedly following dangerous stories well after any other journalist would have compromised or given up. Also, in the first season a lot more emphasis is put upon Freddie's attitude towards social class, both because he's far more sensitive to class differences at this point and because the main storyline is so closely tied up in the lifestyle of the British aristocracy.

Freddie comes from a working-class background but is heavily influenced by his time as an evacuee with the aristocratic Elms family, and by his friendship with the upwardly-mobile Cambridge graduate Bel. He wears a shirt and tie because that's the only real option for a man who works in an office in the 1950s, but aside from that he quite openly doesn't care about fashion or style. Next to the handsome and well-tailored Hector Madden he looks unapologetically weedy and unkempt, something I suspect Freddie is oddly proud of. Wearing ill-fitting trousers and sweater-vests, he knows to his bones that he's different from all the rich and powerful people he writes about at work. There's one particular scene I remember from when Bel and Freddie spent a weekend at the country house of Hector's extremely upper-class wife, Marnie. They're given a full schedule grouse-shooting and dinner parties, for which Freddie is unashamedly unprepared. In the end Hector makes him borrow a full black-tie outfit, which of course swamps Freddie and makes him look like a Dickensian waif. This is a familiar trope in British costume dramas, most recently seen in Downton Abbey when a former chauffeur is scorned for showing up to dinner wearing an ordinary suit.

Freddie changes a lot between seasons 1 and 2, maturing past the kind of reverse snobbery he espoused when he first met Hector. At first, Freddie's constant state of mild dishevelment highlighted the differences between himself and Hector's classically handsome, well-to-do appearance. Interestingly, Hector probably put less thought into his appearance than Freddie did into his purposeful lack of style, since Hector not only has a wife who picks out his clothes for him, but he also has a backstage crew making sure he looks good enough for television. As for basic elements of personal grooming, Hector was in the army and probably went to boarding school, so his general neatness and devotion to masculine style conventions would have been drilled into him from a young age. At first Freddie rebels against all the things that a good suit and neat hair represent, but in season 2 he returns with greater confidence and different priorities -- and, for the first time, is in front of the cameras on a regular basis. The shabby cardigans are replaced with closely-tailored suits that actually fit his slim frame, and he mostly restrains himself to a rather subdued palette.

Continued in the Menswear of The Hour.

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Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. (Part 2)

Previously: Master & Commander, Part 1.

The characters in Master & Commander have a lot to say about the division between Navy and non-Navy sailors, whether it's out loud in dialogue or implicitly through their costuming. The final battle of the movie hinges upon the HMS Surprise being mistaken for a whaling ship, a ruse which is helped along by the recent addition of some former whalers to the crew. The idea of a Navy ship being neat and organised is so ingrained that their "disguise" is merely to seem messier and less competent than usual, and for the officers to wear brown oilcoats over their uniforms. For the everyday crewmembers, the task of upholding the image of the British Empire is to keep the ship running as cleanly and smoothly as possible; for the officers, it's to maintain an appearance of upstanding British aristocracy even in the middle of a storm.

The finest example of the British Seafaring Gentleman archetype in Master & Commander is, surprisingly, not Captain Aubrey. In fact it's one of the midshipman, Peter Calamy. Calamy is the most well-respected of the midshipmen -- experienced enough to be a good leader, but still young enough to be idealistic. With his short hair, sideburns and long trousers he definitely falls into the category of the proto-Victorian gentlemen, and unlike the younger midshipmen he's relatively clean and kempt. By contrast, Aubrey looks a lot more 18th century and careworn, and has clearly relaxed with age. Most of his clothes are old and worn, and in private he regularly strips down to stained shirtsleeves and knee-breeches. 

Aubrey's second in command, Tom Pullings, falls somewhere between Aubrey and Calamy. Pullings is an established officer in his own right, meaning that M&C isn't really "his" film and far more screentime goes to the aging hero (Aubrey) and the various coming-of-age stories of the midshipmen. In style he generally takes after his role-model Aubrey, with long hair and relatively traditional dress, but I'd say he's neater and more put-together -- which may partly be down to his role onboard ship. Since Aubrey's method of leadership is rather paternal and flexible, Pullings has to be more by-the-book in order to balance things out. The most interesting thing about Pullings' costuming is his bicorn hat, which he wears "fore-and-aft" in contrast to Aubrey's "athwartships" style. Athwartships was the style favoured by the older generation, modelled off Nelson's style, and this type of variation within the uniform is a clear sign of how much Naval uniforms were influenced by changing fashions.

I find it interesting, the way men's fashions and the value of personal style are so evident in this movie. Most of the officers take pride in their appearance even if only out of societal pressure, but it's a type of vanity that doesn't really have a modern equivalent -- particularly among men. These are 19th-century men who are influenced by 19th-century dandyism, even if they aren't dandies themselves. Being clean and well-turned-out was associated with things that don't necessarily have anything to do with fashion these days: patriotism, manliness, aristocracy, and competence. It's often the case that a character will be mocked for seeming too prissy or obsessed with their appearance (for example, the pastel-coloured Naval officers and East India Trading Company men in Pirates of the Caribbean), but I feel like the attitudes expressed in Master & Commander are far truer to life than that. These men aren't trying to impress women (because there aren't any), they aren't really trying to impress each other (because there's no privacy onboard ship, so everyone sees each other at their worst), and they certainly aren't keeping up with a strict uniform code as in the modern military. They're just living up to a set of standards that don't exist in modern society.
While the crew of the Surprise are somewhat ragtag and the officers are governed by the twin masters of 19th century fashion and the Naval uniform code, Paul Bettany's Dr Maturin is very obviously a civilian -- and very obviously unconcerned with Naval ideals of masculinity and Britishness. I'm not overly familiar with the original Aubrey/Maturin novels, but I do know that Maturin is the character who changed most between the books and the film. Although in M&C he's still an Irishman, his history as a spy and a laudanum addict is erased, as are his extreme levels of scruffiiness when compared to the other Gentlemen onboard the Surprise. Instead his lack of seamanship is emphasised, both in terms of his total lack of interest in sailing and in his many philosophical differences with dyed-in-the-wool Navy men like Aubrey.
The relationship between Aubrey and Maturin is the focal point of the film, with the unusually forward-thinking Maturin providing the audience with an outsider's view of Navy life. As a scientist and a rationalist, Maturin is a kind of Spock figure to Aubrey's Captain Kirk, since much of Aubrey's skill as a captain comes down to instinct and experience. Because he's the ship's doctor and the captain's closest friend, Maturin gets a lot of leeway when it comes to eccentricity, but he still wouldn't get away with the way he acts unless he also had the respect of the crew. The main reason he's allowed to dress and behave the way he does is because he's the only real civilian onboard, and therefore doesn't have to fit in with the crew or with the strict upper-class guidelines of the officers.

While he isn't as unkempt as his print counterpart, Paul Bettany's Maturin still bears very few signs of a 19th century gentleman's interest in fashion. He has no time for masculine posturing, and when it comes to his appearance he's something of an eccentric-intellectual stereotype -- all shabby waistcoats and old coats. Probably as a concession to the movie's 21st-century audience, Maturin's periwig has been traded in for a distinctly modern (well, Victorian) hairstyle. His most unusual outfit is the one he wears while exploring the Galapagos islands: a patterned banyan robe, a straw hat, and lace-up leather spats. It's an interesting combination: old-fashioned knee-breeches like Aubrey, coupled with the distinctly casual and unpatriotic addition of an Indian-style overcoat that has little in common with the more formal Naval fashions of the day.

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Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. (Part 1)

Master & Commander is #1 on my list of movies where I pine for a sequel. The thing is, even nine years on, they could still totally make one. The hope just makes it all the more painful, my friends. Master & Commander is so close to perfect that it even withstands the presence of Bach's Prelude for Cello in G, one of the most overused pieces of classical music in movie history. And as for the visuals, while M&C is mostly dominated by Naval uniforms, I find its costume design to be far more satisfying than a hell of a lot of other historical movies.
As a war story with an all-male cast, Master & Commander is immediately predisposed to look more realistic because in movieland, war + men = dirt = authenticity. While men's costumes in period dramas are typically less showy than women's, they tend to be a lot more accurate because female characters are almost always idealised. Pirates of the Caribbean came out at around the same time as M&C, and while it's a Disney comedy about zombie pirates and therefore can be taken with a pinch of salt, it's still weird to see so many scenes where Keira Knightley looks immaculate while the male leads look like they haven't washed for a week. The female lead in a historical drama is expected to be alluring regardless of the state of everyone else, but the cast of M&C is made up of rugged, grime-spattered sailors who occasionally happen to be played by handsome movie stars. They even made the actors get their teeth stained in the name of historical authenticity, which I can pretty much guarantee has never happened to Keira Knightley in anything. Although in Master & Commander's defence, a 19th century Naval ship is one of the very few instances where it's legitimate for there to be zero female characters, so it doesn't actually bother me in that regard.

Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for movies where a lot of the characters are in uniform, because it forces filmmakers to be more thoughtful about costume design. One of my favourite examples of this is Alien, another shipboard film that actually has a few parallels with M&C when it comes to the divide between officers and working stiffs. The thing that makes Master & Commander particularly interesting in this regard is that in 1805, British Navy Uniforms really weren't all that uniform. The first Naval uniform guidelines were issued to officers in 1748, and by 1805 those had been narrowed down to a more-or-less uniform selection of navy blue coats, white waistcoats and so on. But that still didn't translate to everybody  looking the same, and the general attitude towards the uniform was very different from the way it is today.
The uniform's main purpose was to create a clear distinction between the upper and lower classes onboard ship, so it wasn't hugely important for all the officers to wear precisely the same thing -- just for them to represent the officer class in a respectable manner. The basics of a Naval officer's uniform were a navy blue coat, white breeches or trousers, a white shirt, and a waistcoat. Within those parameters, you can already see a fair amount of variety among the officer characters in Master & Commander. It's closer to a strict office dresscode than a modern-day military uniform -- as in, you have to wear a sombre suit, but your boss doesn't tell you what colour of tie to wear. If you look at the officers onboard the HMS Surprise, you can tell they're wearing near-identical coats and other "uniform" items, but their waistcoats, shirts and cravats are often different, as are the styles in which they wear them. The standards were more exacting when it came to dress-uniform occasions but for everyday wear, officers had a certain amount of leeway.
Military uniforms in the early 19th century were closely tied to current fashions and images of masculinity, so it's not surprising that the uniform guidelines were so malleable. Not only was there a certain amount of fashion-based posturing among officers in real life, but there was also a generational divide -- one that we see quite clearly in this film. Captain Aubrey, a traditionalist in early middle-age, represents the old guard in canvas knee-breeches and long hair. But the teenaged midshipmen look more like Victorians in terms of style, with short hair and long trousers. The enlisted men wear what were known as "slops" -- non-uniform clothing that was generally bought either from the ship's stores or at the docks when the ship was berthed. Enlisted/pressganged men often made and mended their clothes themselves, whereas the officers, as Gentlemen, were expected to pay for their uniforms to be made from scratch. Since mass-production wasn't yet an option, the officers would have their uniforms tailored professionally, which further adds to the lack of uniformity among the ranks. Aubrey is probably wearing the same coat he's had for years, whereas a younger officer's coat would be tailored to a more modern style.
One of the things that makes this movie seem so true to the period is the widespread grime and the characters' attitude towards it. This was the beginning of the "cleanliness is next to godliness" era, with a great deal of pressure being put upon people to look smart and therefore "civilised". There are several scenes where Midshipmen are told to smarten up or Aubrey references the importance of neatness and efficiency to a British Navy vessel, but to a modern eye everything still looks filthy. Maintaining an image of British aristocracy and cleanliness is no picnic when you have a full-time manual job sailing an 18th-century frigate, and have relatively little fresh water or, indeed, soap.
This post is already getting too long, so I'm going to split it into two and write about the individual character costumes in the second half. But for now, have some nerd facts:

• When filming onboard ship, the actors in Master & Commander were segregated according to class, meaning the officers never socialised or ate with the enlisted/pressganged men.
• The reason why a long pigtail is the stereotypical fashion for the enlisted/pressganged sailors was originally because it showed you hadn't recently been shaved for lice.
• When it came to "uniforms" for the enlisted men, captains were encouraged to set guidelines, which were semi-enforced by the ship only selling a particular colour of fabric to the sailors for clothing manufacture. Of course, this also meant that captains could effectively make their entire crew dress in red gingham, if they wanted to. According to legend (mmm, reliable), the captain of the HMS Blazer made his crew wear blue-and-white striped jackets, which may or may not be the original source of the modern-day blazer jacket.

Link to Part 2.

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Banana Karenina.

Anna Karenina is a book about Keira Knightley falling in love with some guy from History, and then some problems happening as a result. Banana Republic is a shop that makes clothes for non-poor Americans. Finally, at long last, these two have come together to give birth to the selection of Russian literature-themed womenswear that we've all been waiting for.

The thing is, I do understand why movie tie-in fashion lines exist. They're a cynical moneyspinner, but the reason why they work as a cynical monespinner is because people like the clothes they see in movies. Unfortunately, this Banana Republic collection is so distant from its supposed inspiration that it could just as easily be a tie-in for Gossip Girl or Mad Men or... anything ever produced by Banana Republic. It looks quite nice, but what's the point?

Buying movie tie-in clothes like Twilight hoodies and Katniss Everdeen jackets is basically cosplay for people who haven't heard of the term "cosplay" yet. Dressing up is fun, and buying a Hunger Games jacket means you can feel like Katniss Everdeen on your morning commute without anyone else having to know that you're secretly in costume. Or else, sometimes you just really want to buy an outfit you see in a movie, simply because it looks good. It's self-generated product placement. But in the case of Anna Karenina, I'm pretty baffled at the decision to have Banana Republic handle the tie-in capsule collection.

Films like Anna Karenina are called "costume dramas" for a reason, you know? Obviously any type of near-accurate versions of costumes from the movie are an unrealistic hope, because they'd be prohibitively expensive and would only appeal to a small fraction of the audience. But for people who see this movie and are excited enough by the visuals that they want to go out and buy something that reminds them of it, Banana Republic's offerings seem paltry at best.
It's pretty easy to build a capsule wardrobe around a movie set in the present day, but in the case of Anna Karenina one has to take the luxury of upper-class 19th century Russia and somehow transfer it to modern, wearable clothes. And honestly, the Banana Republic capsule collection doesn't even seem to be trying. These clothes will definitely sell because they make up a decent ready-to-wear collection and will, you know, be available to buy in shops, but the only thing they have in common with Anna Karenina is the inclusion of some vaguely Russian-looking faux fur hats.

I'm no literary purist. In fact, my entire experience with Tolstoy boils down to having read the first four pages of War And Peace before abandoning it in favour of something else (probably involving aliens or superheroes). But still, the idea of attaching the name and persona of a 19th century Russian heroine to this  selection of bland pencil-skirt-and-cardigan outfits just seems dismal to me. Corsets and floor-length gowns may not currently be in vogue, but at least some effort might have been made to bring the luxury of the movie's visuals to the look of this collection. This time last year I was snobbishly complaining about the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fashion line by H&M, but compared to Banana Republic, that was practically spot-on accurate. So for now, I'll leave you with Ulyana Sergeenko, a designer who has managed far more successfully to meld old-fashioned Russian design with more modern, wearable styles.

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