Movie Costumes I Have Loved: Thor.

For the last ten years or so, blockbuster comicbook movies have been getting gradually less and less comicbook-y. That's not a criticism -- after all, The Dark Knight is a zillion times better than the infamously godawful Batman & Robin, even if it does take place entirely in the dark and focus on a ridiculously good-looking billionaire being sad about how hard his life is -- but I did enjoy getting a chance to see a movie as shamelessly comicbook-looking as Thor, because it really would have been impossible to make a story about sparkly alien god-beings seem super dark and serious. His weapon is a magical hammer, hello.

As you can tell from his helmet, nobody in Asgard gives a shit about low doorways.

(Also, Thor is the first feminist superhero movie. It is! Read that article, it says it better than I ever could.)

I was a bit doubtful of Thor at first, especially since when I asked my comicbook friend Michael whether it was just a film about an angry blond jock with an enormous hammer, he said, "YES, AND THAT'S WHY IT'S AWESOME." But once I saw it I had to agree that while it was still a film about an angry blond jock with a hammer, it WAS awesome! It was 100% sparkles and explosions, and 0% tiresome Hollywood sexism! The hero had a convincing rapport with his love-interest, unlike Batman (Christopher Nolan, I love you, but why must all your female characters be cardboard cut-outs and/or dead?) or Spiderman (Mary Jane: start carrying a taser, you get kidnapped like twice a week)! Thor and Loki's daddy issues were interesting and emotionally compelling, unlike the representation of pretty much any other blockbuster hero's daddy issues ever.

Disco eyepatches are in!

And it has some sparkleicious fantasy costumes, the likes of which have not been seen in years. I love the more "realistic" style of costumes used in LOTR and Harry Potter, but if they'd make Thor all harsh-looking and mysterious it would have ruined it, I think. Much of this movie's appeal comes from the contrast between the over-the-top, rainbows-and-gold visuals of Asgard (where Thor is an alien prince with a magical hammer), and Natalie Portman's impoverished scientist lifestyle in New Mexico (where Thor is a hot yet possibly-crazy homeless man). If you haven't seen the movie then most of the Asgardian costumes in this post are going to look completely ridiculous, but I promise you that in the context of a civilisation of alien vikings (really glam alien vikings, who despite the very sound advice of the superhero costume lady from The Incredibles, still have an ongoing love-affair with capes) they are perfectly acceptable.

Asgard, land of sparkles. That long walkway in the middle is made of GLOWING CRYSTALS and is called the Rainbow Bridge, just FYI.

OK, so for maximum shininess I'd put Heimdall first, even though he's a relatively minor character. Caveat: I have not seen an actor look so much look like an action figure in a long, long time, maybe ever. Even Captain America did not look this much like an action figure, and Captain America practically is an action figure.

His job is basically the all-seeing alien viking equivalent of being the guy who checks the CCTV cameras for break-ins. He spends most of the movie standing around looking imposing and wise, so it's not totally clear to me why he requires metal shoulderpads the size of a buick. HOWEVER, I am not Asgardian so who am I to judge? Like Liberace or Roman emperors, most these guys find it necessary to wear capes to breakfast. Haters to the left.

Asgardians are not subtle when it comes to phallic symbols. Ask Thor about his hammer some time.

When it comes to comicbook adaptations the costumes are very rarely the same as those found in the books, both because many superheroes change costumes regularly and because those costumes look either like brightly-coloured 1980s jumpsuits or really specialised stripper outfits (or both). However, considering how silly comics-Thor costumes appear to be, they've carried a surprising amount of the original looks through. (You may correct me if I'm wrong, readers -- I admit that I've never actually read a Thor comic so this assumption comes entirely from tumblr images.) For example, the whole helmets thing. Loki's comicbook costume appears to be something like this, leading to movie-Loki looking like a cross between Johnny Weir and a really gothy antelope:

(Here's a gallery of photos of the prop helmets, if you're interested.)

I really enjoyed Loki's armour because it was so clearly ceremonial. This does not look to me like working armour. Thor, Sif (Thor's female friend) and the Warriors Three all had comparatively functional armour, but Loki's armour fails to cover his legs, a bunch of his torso, and his throat. Loki's not a warrior. In fact, there's a very obvious brains/brawn delineation between Loki and Thor from the very first scenes in Asgard, as I recall. I suspect that Loki is the Asgardian equivalent of a nerd, and he mostly seems to rely on his wit and magical powers to win fights. In pre-prodution his Asgardian costume looked a bit more melodramatic, but I prefer what they went with in the end (plus it's far more suited to Tom Hiddleston's slim figure).

He's wearing black, so by standard Hollywood blockbuster logic he's probably going to turn evil.

Photo via Tumblr, I'm afraid.

Queen Frigg has a selection of super glam outfits, most of them in the 1970s stage costume/fantasy cartoon realm, like this one. Personally I think this gown is stunning in a "that would be horrifying in real life" kind of way. I love the combination of retrofuturistic silhouette (like the capes the men wear, her gown has stiffened boning to hold it in shape at the top) and cheesy celtic knot/Lord Of The Rings elf-ish patterns down the sides. Here's a close-up of the zillions of uncomfortable-looking rhinestones:

Queens don't need to be able to move their arms; they have people to do that stuff for them. She probably has like five disco Valkyries standing off to the side with magical alien hairspray to fix her hair if it ever comes out of its rigid curls. This costume would not look out of place in old-school Star Trek, and therefore I approve of it on principal. 

This is what movies would like to think ladies look like when they are being "casual" and/or are just about to go to bed. ie, part of her hair is slightly out of place but she's still wearing earrings, a ring, lipstick, and a metal-fibre dress. This is what alien viking queens wear to their husbands sickbeds, apparently.

As for Sif and Thor's Asgardian BFFs the Warriors Three, I couldn't find any decent full-length pictures so here's one of the stunt actors in the stunt versions of their costumes from the beginning of the movie.

Source: behind-the-scenes pics.

Note that Sif is wearing just as much clothing/armour as the men: practically unheard-of! Hogun's costume looks somewhat inspired by traditional Japanese armour, with a split half-skirt of flexible armour around the thighs. Fandral (the blonde dude) is meant to be a bit of an Errol Flynn-esque rake and therefore has a whole Robin Hood thing going on with the green colour-scheme and the turned-up cuffs, not to mention the fabulous hair.

Having looked at the Warriors Three comicbook picture on wikipedia, I think this is a fairly reasonable adaptation. I mean:

Volstagg is like giant viking Henry VIII in magenta shoulderpads, Hogun is a Mongolian warrior wearing a leather miniskirt and toting an enormous metal club, and Fandral is wearing what appears to be thigh-high boots and a fur-collared muscle shirt. Did I mention that these guys are from a culture that's developed interstellar travel? I fucking love it. Watching this type of movie generally requires you to switch off the part of your brain that thinks things like, "but why are they riding horses/carrying hammers instead of laser pistols/still living in a monarchy?"

Did you know there's a Tumblr entirely dedicated to Women Fighters In Reasonable Armour? Well, you do now!

The true majesty of Thor's epic cape-and-armour outfit is best illustrated by standing him next to a normal-sized person wearing normal earth clothing, so here we go:

SO RED. SO SHINY. SO... CODPIECE-Y. Also, his fishscale armour is really well made, they've managed to make it look like it's almost painted on to his ludicrously sculpted biceps. Kudos on that one, bicep-measurers. Your task is an evidently an arduous one and I applaud you for it. I'm still not really clear what those little shields on the torso are for, though. Decoration, I guess. The cape, of course, is wonderful. I was very heartened to learn from the costume designer that quite a bit of work went into designing the capes -- if you think about it, it's actually pretty hard to make a cape that billows when you want it to and stands still the rest of the time without bunching up in weird places.

He has some muscles.

Once on Earth, Thor's costumes become almost aggressively normal and generic-looking. In a way this emphasises how alien he is, because we've already got used to him being the dude in the cape, plus he's now a huge loud blond smiling body-builder in the middle of a zero-horse town in New Mexico. From a practical perspective, I assume that Thor's new friends had to quickly borrow and/or buy him a new wardrobe from the local thrift store, so plaid shirts and jeans make sense. Anyway, now for the most shocking part of this post: the Earth ladies.

SHE'S CHILLY SO SHE'S WEARING A SWEATER.

All of Natalie Portman's outfits are totally boring and sensible. Both Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings are stunningly beautiful, but Natalie Portman's character is a workaholic scientist and both women look like they're dressing for comfort, although Kat Dennings is a little more esoteric in style.

Never in all my years of superhero/cheesy blockbuster movie watching have I seen a scene like this next picture, in which two female characters (one of whom is funny and confident and the other is a workaholic science geek -- yet neither are mocked and derided for these characteristics, either implicitly or explicitly) sit down to discuss their work while wearing sensible warm clothes and being awesome BFFs.

OMG Darcy Lewis I love you, please be in all future superhero movies forever.

I'm rather proud of myself for making it all the way through this post without a single reference to the fact that Loki just needs a hug or that Odin is a shitty father (I COULD GO ON ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE), so as a reward to myself here is a picture of Loki in what may well be my favourite outfit of the entire film:

To my endless disappointment, no full-length pictures are readily available of Loki in his Earth suit. However, rest assured that he looks amazing in it. This was the only costume I thought consciously about while I was watching the film, because to me it really illustrated the differences between him and Thor. Thor, while he is a likeable guy and therefore would have done OK in the end, really fell on his feet by immediately meeting friendly Earthlings who were willing to show him the ropes vis a vis how to buy coffee and cross the road without getting run over. Had Loki been the one banished to earth I think that he'd have hidden in the shadows for a day or so until he'd learnt enough Earth mannerisms to pass, and then he'd pursue a career as a con artist. In this scene from the movie he is (presumably) on Earth for the first time, yet he's immaculately dressed in a suit and coat. I choose to ignore the fact that he's also invisible, making such a disguise somewhat pointless, and instead concentrate on the fact that he's 100% tragic dapper ice-prince.

Postscript: Regarding Loki's "just chillin' in my black leather troubled-younger-brother outfit" costume (pictured above), I can't help but think of the designer Haider Ackermann, who does a lot of interesting work with rich iridescent fabrics and unusual structuring while still making all his designs seem incredibly classy and smooth. Beautiful.

Here's how to dress like Loki if you're a lady and also have $10,000 spare. (pics from Style.com)

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Movie costumes I have loved: A Knight's Tale.

After writing about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and (kind of) the new Girl With The Dragon Tattoo adaptation, I'd hate it to seem like I only think "serious" films have costumes worth talking about. Time for something a little more lighthearted!

Paul Bettany as bitchy Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the main reasons you NEED to see this film.

A Knight's Tale has been one of my favourite feel-good movies for years, but only recently did I realise that it's become kind of a cult favourite in the decade since it first came out. In the UK at least, most students and people in their mid-twenties have seen it or own it on DVD, although it's not one of those cult-cult movies like The Room or Mean Girls that people quote incessantly -- it's just straight-up fun. I can't help but love the way A Knight's Tale gleefully embraces its own ridiculousness without a trace of irony. If you haven't seen it, here's a test to see if you'll like it or not: If you get annoyed by the fact that this scene appears in an action-comedy supposedly set in 14th century Europe, then probably don't bother watching any more.

From the first minute, A Knight's Tale is awash with self-aware anachronisms, from the soundtrack (Queen; David Bowie; AC/DC) to the fact that in one overhead shot of "medieval" London they have the freaking London Eye made of wood by the Thames. I don't really understand people who frame that as a criticism, since the film never once claims to be historically accurate the way, say, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood touted its "realism". When was the last time you heard someone complain that Pirates of the Caribbean isn't realistic enough? They're similar films -- action/romance comedies with attractive leads and a supporting cast of excellent comedic actors -- but while Pirates has zombies in it (so historical), A Knight's Tale has people dancing to David Bowie and competing in a completely fictitious set of World Cup-like jousting tournaments. Neither of them are historical dramas, they are fantasy movies.

P.S. The whole "jousting world cup" thing was totally fabricated.

Thinking about the costumes in this film, most of the characters are dressed like cartoon characters. In fact, it works a lot like a Disney cartoon in general -- obvious colour-coding, immediate visual cues to indicate to younger audiences the difference between the good and evil characters, and lots of physical comedy from Heath Ledger's sidekicks. Due to the presence of a fictionalised version of Chaucer (played brilliantly by Paul Bettany) we know it's set some time in the late 14th century, but it may as well be set any time in the amorphous "olden days" of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc because it doesn't matter.

"Oh my goodness! Did you know that nobody actually gives a crap what century we're in?"

In a film that's locked into a specific time period and concerns historical characters the audience might recognise (such as The King's Speech), it's important to make sure the visuals are accurate and create the right background tone for the actors to do their job. In a film like this, a film that's setting out to be cartoonish and funny and emotionally engaging without involving any serious Oscar-bait issues, a high degree of historical accuracy or realism in the set-design and costumes might actually be detrimental to the story.

As the beautiful princess/love-interest character, Shannyn Sossamon's costumes are probably the furthest from anything remotely resembling medieval garb:

Photo from Dianne's Costumes & Research.

Beautiful, timeless, virginal... by way of Chanel coats and those hand-made felt hats your slightly hippie-ish aunt buys at craft fairs. Heath Ledger, on the other hand, looks a bit more like he could actually have been found in Medieval times, aside for the surprising lack of malnutrition, bad teeth or suppurating sores. Most of the peasant characters wear simple tunics or natural-coloured shirts, while it's the richer folk who end up looking like they just fell off a runway circa 2001.

Love it! In the background there's what may or may not be a Roundhead guard and a woman dressed in some approximation of a medieval lady's gown, and at the front we have Shannyn Sossamon looking fabulous in a selection of fabrics that come directly from the machines of the late 20th century. Does this detract from the film? I don't think so. And her outfit is topical because the hat and feminine suit are reminiscent of what ladies wear to the Royal Ascot horse races nowadays, and in this scene she's watching a bunch of other aristocrats play horse-riding sports.

Rufus Sewell (far left) is dressed like a bad guy (black clothes in thick, heavy fabric), and has really negative body-language. The guy in the middle is in a leather jerkin that wouldn't look out of place in a "serious" historical film. Shannyn Sossamon looks delicate, beautiful, and totally anachronistic, and her friend looks kind of medieval but not really. All the extras -- although you can't see them very well here -- provide historical context by looking like they might actually have been at a joust instead of whatever modern-day garden party Shannyn Sossamon just came from.

This head-dress looks almost Tudor-era. I love the way the costume designer managed to take a selection of styles from 14th, 15th, 16th-century Europe and use them to inspire a look that meshes with the more traditional costumes of the rest of the film but still immediately sets the character out as beautiful, fashion-forward, and rich. And they've cleverly sidestepped the problems faced by putting a modern actor in clothes originally intended for the medieval body-shape, and designed clothes that flatter Shannyn Sossamon's super-slim, delicate figure. You get the impression that everyone involved in the making of this film had a really great time working on it -- as evidenced by the fact that it's one of the very few films where the DVD commentary (by Paul Bettany and the director, as I recall) is actually interesting and charming instead of a slew of boring technical details.

The other main female character, Kate the farrier, is dressed relatively sensibly, fitting in with most of the peasants/extras.

 Unlike some people, Kate has an actual job instead of just showing up to jousts and looking pretty. You know what? Shannyn Sossamon's character is kind of a WAG!

Aside from Shannyn Sossamon's wildly anachronistic gowns, my other main love of the costumes in A Knight's Tale stems from the way they're used consciously within the story to illustrate Heath Ledger's journey from serf to knight. Aside from an upgrade in armour when he wins a couple of tournaments, Heath's own costumes don't change much throughout the film. Aside from the scene in the video above, for which he gets his man-servant to sew him a party outfit out of curtain material (!), he mainly wears simple linen shirts and trousers. His sidekicks, on the other hand, totally get a makeover. At the beginning the three of them look like this:

Screencaps from http://www.leavemethewhite.com

But by the end they look like this:

I particularly enjoy the way Alan Tudyk's outfits have this almost sports team logo-esque motif going on throughout.

Wat and Roland (Alan Tudyk and Mark Addy, in two of of the most entertaining comedy-sidekick performances I can think of) now wear matching green livery and Paul Bettany has not only acquired clothes but got hold of an awesome leather coat. If you watch out for it, you'll notice that coat get gradually more and more souped-up every time Heath's team wins more money in the tournaments. A mid-level moment in Paul Bettany's progression from nudity to to pimped-out fur/leather coat looks like this:

While Heath Ledger's costumes are very simple (presumably so as not to distract from his luminous good looks), Rufus Sewell, thanks to both design and genetics, looks about as dastardly as you can get. He barely even needs dialogue -- he could just glower a lot while wearing a ton of black armour, and the audience would be able to work it out.

I wonder if there's a stable in Hollywood that caters exclusively to evil-looking horses, to play Nazgul steeds in Lord of the Rings and stuff like that? Either way, the costume people in A Knight's Tale went out of their way to make Rufus Sewell's armour look as forbidding as possible, with lots of expensive-looking black gloss to contrast with Heath's honest-looking second-hand armour at the beginning of the movie.

Plus many high collars and tight fastenings to show how closed-off he is compared to sweet, beautful Heath Ledger. I TOLD YOU THIS MOVIE HAD THE SUBTLETY OF A DISNEY CARTOON.

OMG he's so dreamy!!

As with every aspect of this movie, the costumes don't take themselves too seriously. The female lead looks stand-out beautiful, the bad guy is so evil-looking a three-year-old could probably pick him out at a glance, and the supporting cast have costumes that fit with their characters without distracting from the main guys. Compare a warm, humour-filled film like this with the visuals of Robin Hood (which supposedly takes place in the same time period, and even has a similar rags-to-riches storyline), and I know which one I prefer.

Try to get a little more brown in there next time, OK? WE WANT IT TO LOOK REALLY GRITTY.

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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, H&M, and the difficulties of marketing a female action/thriller hero.

Whenever I see an article about H&M's new "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" line I waste valuable seconds of my life being irritated, so where better to vent than my fashion blog?

I'm aware that it's probably stupid to get annoyed by high street fashion marketing. It's always going to be dumb. H&M is just making use of a popular book and movie franchise to sell bland goth-lite clothes. However, the designer hired by H&M to create the Lisbeth Salander line is the costume designer from the actual movie, and the clothes look exactly like normal H&M clothes, except monochromatic. And... "Lisbeth Salander studded wedge heels"? Right.

Omigod I can't wait to get my emotionally-damaged hacker outfit! Yay, generic-looking $200 jackets!

I'm not wild about they way Lisbeth Salander is being marketed in preparation for this film. It's going to be hard enough for Rooney Mara to measure up to Noomi Rapace's fantastic performance in the original Swedish-language adaptations, and I doubt that "sexy" marketing is going to help in that regard. A gajillion people bought this book: isn't that evidence enough that Lisbeth Salander is already an interesting character? Is it necessary for Mara's first -- and aside from a recent spread in Le Monde, which is unlikely to reach most of this movie's prospective viewers, only -- photoshoot for the Dragon Tattoo movie to look like this?

Photos from W Magazine.

Seriously? I mean, obviously this photoshoot wasn't made using the actual Lisbeth Salander costumes, but most people taking a casual glance at it are not going to know that. Aside from the fact that they essentially amount to a collection of sexualised images of a character whose defining backstory centres around child abuse, these pictures do the movie a disservice by making it indistinguishable from a multitude of other fashion spreads. Girl straddling a motorcycle and looking pouty? Meh. Every actress in Hollywood has done a photoshoot that either includes a sexy motorbike pose or involves a goth/punk theme (especially former child stars trying to appear "adult").

Fun fact: if you google "Rooney Mara Lisbeth Salander", the second image that comes up is one from this photoshoot, posing topless in the snow while looking fragile and wistful. Does this bare any resemblance to her performance as Salander? Probably not. But it's still the first set of images people are going to find before the movie comes out, because aside from the trailer no screenshots have been revealed. Of all the photos from this shoot, I'd say this one looks most like the Lisbeth Salander we can expect to see in the movie:

Perhaps a bit too glam, but I'm going to give the film the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're going to make Salander more messy-looking onscreen and less like an Adam Lambert backing dancer. Which brings me to my main worry about Lisbeth Salander's appearance in the American remake: grunginess.

Salander's style (if you can call it that) is entirely wrapped up in her prickly, angry, socially-maladjusted personality. She dresses with explicit aim of coming across as scary and unappealing. She isn't part of any goth subculture, and she has no difficulty attracting a partner when she wants to get laid and therefore does not dress with the aim of being sexually appealing. In the typical (male) hacker stereotype she spends long stretches of time on her computer, eating shitty food, not washing, and not changing her clothes. As a physically small woman who is justifiably wary of abuse and attack, she goes out of her way give off as many negative signals as possible. The way Rooney Mara has been styled, however, doesn't quite match this. Firstly, her hairstyle looks expensive and trendy instead of home-cut and messy, and secondly, if ever there was a role for which an actress should "ugly up", Lisbeth Salander is it.

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander. Photo from Le Monde.

Rooney Mara is beautiful. She looks like a model. She looks like a model with a cool haircut that probably needs trimming and restyling every other week. I'm not saying this is a casting issue -- I'm saying that "beautiful" is probably not a word that should be associated with this character. In the original movie, Noomi Rapace, both through body-language and through styling, looked like someone you might see (and probably avoid) in real life. Rooney Mara looks like someone who would turn heads. This illustrates the gap between a book and a Hollywood movie, because while on the page Salander can be described as unsettling in appearance, as skinny and weird-looking, as creepy and bony, what this translates to on the big screen is: thin.

It's been mentioned in interviews that Rooney Mara went on a strict diet to maintain Salander's appearance, but you can't really compare this with something like Christian Bale's transformation for The Machinist because on the big screen, skinny women are the norm.

That's a pretty shocking photo, right? Particularly if you've seen Christian Bale in Batman, where his arms are about the circumference of his waist in that picture. However, while Rooney Mara's weight-loss for Dragon Tattoo was probably just as difficult to maintain, the end result is... a woman with the same physique Keira Knightley had in Pirates of the Caribbean, a child-friendly action comedy in which she played the romantic lead. They need to go further. In designing a look for Lisbeth Salander, the description you should be concentrating on isn't "skinny goth", it's "scary-looking". And if the end result is that Rooney Mara's Salander looks like a model doing a punk-themed photoshoot, they're doing it wrong.

Postscript: I rewatched the trailer while I was writing this, and although I still think that it's a brilliant trailer that does its job by making me want to see the movie, I notice that it contains a surprisingly tiny amount of Lisbeth Salander. Is this because Daniel Craig is the big-name star and therefore the lynchpin of their marketing for the film, or -- my paranoid feminist brain worries -- is the studio wary of including too much of a a tough, weird female character in case it scares people away? See for yourself.

In order, the recognisable Salander moments (ie, where her face isn't obscured by a helmet) are: Salander looking at something; looking at photos; kissing a girl; looking at a man; on a bed, looking at photos; looking at Daniel Craig; appearing threatened; a man touching Salander's head; running; a moment of the rape scene; Salander on top of (attacking) a man on a bed; looking at Daniel Craig; getting out of a car wearing a blonde wig; in the shower, shivering; walking, peering through a doorway.

That has got to be the most passive depiction of an action/thriller hero I have ever seen. I trust David Fincher to make a good film that reflects the violence and stress of the books, but the way it's being marketed is as if the Bourne Identity trailer had been made up entirely of clips of Matt Damon looking at stuff while other characters got all the dialogue and action sequences.

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Movie costumes I have loved: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,

(Previously on Movies Costumes I Have Loved: A fan's introduction to costume design.)

I've described Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to friends as "a movie about grey-faced men in suits looking at each other suspiciously", although a slightly more accurate description would be that it's a British espionage thriller set during the Cold War, starring Gary Oldman as a spy brought out of retirement to track down a double agent in the upper echelons of MI6. It's full of reticent Englishmen (Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy) staring at each other expressionlessly as they try to figure out who is double-crossing whom, and it's brilliant.

The men of "the Circus".

No one in Tinker, Tailor is dressed ostentatiously, and it would've looked out of place if they had been. The setting is (mostly) London in the early 1970s, but it's not the '70s of David Bowie, it's the '70s of chilly civil service offices during the Cold War, where feminism hasn't really hit yet. There are women working at MI6, but they're mostly office aides working silently in the background.

George Smiley
Gary Oldman's character may be the focus of the story, but he's as sombrely dressed as he is quiet in personality. He's neat, he's efficient, he's dogged, and his clothing gives away about as much as his complete lack of outward emotional expression.

According to an interview with the costume designer, Gary Oldman wears two (very similar) grey suits in the film, but I'm damned if I can tell the difference. Everything about him is engineered to fade into the background. He's one of the old guard of British spies, quiet men who lived through the War and who feel slightly out of place in the rapidly changing world of the 1970s.
The one time we see him make contact with the world outside the Cold War machinations of "the Circus" (British Intelligence's nickname for itself) is when he goes to meet with his former colleague at her new job, running a hostel for students:

Check out how 70s her shirt is! Is that an artificial fibre I see? Smiley, on the other hand, looks like he only just noticed that WWII rationing is over. I loved this scene for its juxtaposition of the buttoned-up Smiley and the young, hippie-ish kids fooling around nearby in the hostel.

Guillam
Guillam, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is Smiley's second in command and the youngest of those working at MI6. He's a bit more modern, and unused to the ruthlessness of the older agents who already lived through one World War.

His trousers have a bit of a flair. His hair is trendier than that of the other agents. Compared to the older men, who have been wearing either rigid woollen school uniform, rigid woollen military uniform or three-piece suits since birth and have never once considered the possibility of self-expression, he's practically a dandy. And he accessorises:

Nice psychedelic tie, bro.

 

'I wanted his character to look as if he were interested in clothes and had recently bought a fashionable suit,' said the costume designer in this interview.

Bill Haydon
Colin Firth's character is the other snappy dresser of the film, and the only character who displays any sense of humour or lightheartedness. He struck me as a classic product of the early 20th century British aristocracy, a real Oxbridge/Etonian man who has led a priveleged existence and sometimes doesn't take everything as seriously as some of his peers. He also dresses very... English country gentleman.

Lots of green/brown fabrics, tailored, of course a waistcoat, and showy cufflinks. You can't see them very well in these pictures, but he's wearing some kind of desert boots instead of dress shoes (outdoorsy!) and usually has brightly-coloured socks on. A bit of a posh eccentric, by the standards of the British civil service.

And here he is compared to the more modern, urban Guillam:

Control
John Hurt's "Control" (the original "M") is the oldest of the old guard. His clothes look like he could have been wearing them during WWII -- he's probably had the suit he's wearing in this picture for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years.

The field agents
Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) and Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) have very different roles to play, but as the only two field agents in the film they have more in common with each other than with the other characters -- despite Prideaux's close relationship with Haydon. Ricki Tarr is of the same generation as Guillam, but is from a very different background. Every one of the men of the Circus is almost certainly a former private school boy and/or Oxbridge graduate, but Ricki gives the impression of being more working class. He's the one who does Guillam's dirty work for him, going to Russia on the trail of MI6's double agent. He's the most casually-dressed person in the film (although I think we can assume that he's often dressing to fit in with people on the street wherever it is he's currently working) and the only one who never sets foot in the Circus offices.

He's certainly the only person to wear a t-shirt in this film.

Ricki Tarr is the most physical character, and you can see it in his clothes: unrestricting and comfortable. Like Guillam he's a modern man, far more emotionally expressive than the older generation of characters -- and along with Guillam, he's one of the only characters to participate in anything close to a functional adult relationship.

Mark Strong's Prideaux, however, is just straight-up practical, whether it's when he's undercover in Russia or just during day-to-day life. He seems to have very little personal vanity. I can't remember if it's ever explicitly stated, but I get the impression that despite his long-time closeness with Haydon (Colin Firth), Prideaux is far less upper-crust than he is.

I loved the subtlety of the costuming in Tinker, Tailor. Suits that looked worn-in without seeming worn-out, harkening back to an age when most adults had experienced rationing firsthand and neatness had been drilled into young men as a habit throughout school and the military. Conservative and British, but not without personality. An excellent example of tailoring costumes to characters.

Links
Cracking the dress code Financial Times article on the "spy chic" of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Guardian interview with Jacqueline Durran, the film's costume designer.

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Movie costumes I have loved: a fan's introduction to costume design.

When rating movie wardrobes, I deduct points for both period dramas and musicals. Allow me to direct your attention to the list of Academy Awards for Best Costume Design. In the past fifteen years, the only winners that weren't period dramas or musicals were Lord Of The Rings and Alice In Wonderland, both fantasies featuring very ostentatious costuming (not that I begrude LOTR its win, which was thoroughly deserved). Is this because all the designers working on films with a contemporary (or futuristic) setting were incompetent? I doubt it. It's similar to the often-bemoaned problem of hammy "Oscar bait" performances -- At this point, putting Keira Knightley or Helena Bonham Carter in a corset and crinoline is the costuming equivalent of getting Philip Seymour Hoffman to play a mentally-ill Nazi.

A totes realistic portrayal of 18th century womanhood.

As far as I can tell, the main points taken into consideration when judging movie costumes are these:

1. Authenticity. This mostly concerns period dramas, but since they make up the vast majority of costume award nominations (not that awards are the be-all and end-all of cinema, but still.) it's probably the most important point. A lot of fuss is made over historically accurate costuming, which I'd immediately dismiss as pointless. First of all, you can't make a truly historically-accurate costume for anything set before, oh, 1850 or so, for these reasons:

• Lack of availability of detailed/accurate documentation of day-to-day clothing. Only the rich had portraits, and those would be idealised. There is no such thing as a "casual" painting, and until you reach the age of photography, it's difficult to find pictures of what most people (ie, poor people) would look like in real life.
• Methods of clothing production are completely different now than they were even 100 years ago, and many of the materials used are now unavailable or stupidly inconvenient to produce. And what's the point in going to the effort of hand-squeezing dye to make your own cloth? Nobody watching the film is going to know or care. No one except fashion historians, who probably enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean as much as the next person, and therefore don't give a crap. 
• Beauty standards change so drastically that modern actors aren't even the same shape as people even 50 years ago, never mind 500, making "historical authenticity" a moot point in the first place. Try looking at a portrait of a 18th century "beauty" some time. They look weird as shit. Diet was completely different, people had babies at 14, every second person had smallpox or syphilis, all the aristocrats wore Lady Gaga wigs and bathed like once a month... it wasn't pretty. Good luck getting Gwyneth Paltrow to do that for the next kings-and-crinolines epic.

Painting of Queen Victoria's coronation. Obviously, there are no photos.

Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria.

A lot of effort went into making this costume as authentic as possible, including handling the original gown in the archive at Kensington palace. In an interview about the process of making this gown, Sally Powell (a nine times nominee and three time winner -- all for historical dramas -- of costume design Academy Awards) describes perfectly the archetypal historical drama costume process:

"...made completely from scratch with us creating the fabric first. Having seen the original in the archive, it was a challenge to recreate this. We did this by buying a plain fabric with a metallic thread in it, then dying it to the right shade of gold, then all the intricate embroidery was recreated by printing and hand painting."

That's bloody amazing. You're impressed, aren't you? I'm impressed. All that work! And you can't deny that the gown looks fantastic. It's a pity they didn't go to the trouble of making the rest of the movie just as authentic -- including rotten teeth, for example (an aspect of "history" often mysteriously ignored by filmmakers), or an actress who, you know, looked anything like Queen Victoria. Why is it that people value historical accuracy in costuming so much higher than in any other aspect of a film? Take a look at the wikipedia entry for "historical accuracy in Gladiator" some time. That movie won an Oscar for best costume design as well.

FUCK YEAH I DESERVED THAT AWARD, CHECK OUT THIS BITCHIN' SKIRT

2. Detail/work. A lot of emphasis always seems to be put on the "Keira Knightley in a crinoline" costumes and the horde of peons who were employed for ten years to sew on each individual seed-pearl. Why? Perhaps this is sacriligious to say, but... does that really matter? Does it improve the experience of watching the film? Would anyone care if each seed pearl was in fact hot-glue-gunned on by an intern? Probably not. They're too busy discreetly wiping away a tear as Keira spurns the latest of her interchangeable onscreen love-interests. In a way, I can more easily understand the vast numbers of people employed to make "realistic" costumes for Lord Of The Rings (most famously the artisans who wore off their fingerprints while making chain-mail by hand) because the core audience for those films were nerds, ie the kind of people who are detail-oriented and obsessive enough to appreciate it. The core audience of films like The Duchess and The Young Victoria? Probably not all that nerdy.

You look fantastic, Elrond.

In Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the costumes were made on a tiny budget (including one dress made from flip-flops, pictured above) by a handful of people, and yet were far more fitting and individual to the characters and setting than the "accurate" yet personality-free costumes found in many historical dramas. The costumes of Priscilla were truly original and imaginative, although I admit they do fit into my final category of Oscar nomination staples...

3. Sparkles! There's something about people dancing around in shiny outfits that taps straight into the animal hindbrain and makes it go, "Yay!"

Omigod I look AMAZING! Sparkles!!

This is the reason why musicals are the other main recipient of comments to the effect of  "wow, those costumes were brilliant!" Well, yes, they probably were, because a large amount of time and money went into them, but what you really meant was, "wow, those costumes are really noticeable!" With musicals, you can't help but notice that people are wearing a costume, which in any other type of film is the exact opposite of what you should be going for. In most other films, consciously noting the costumes probably means that you've been distracted from the actual content. The fourth wall has been breached.

The one thing I think actually matters.

Having read the last few paragraphs, you probably think I have no respect for the hard work and talent of costume designers. Not true! In fact, I am in awe of a great many historical films for precisely the same reason most people are: the amount of effort that's been put into their historical authenticity. (Also, the quantity of pretty sparkles.) However, I think there's one fundamental element of costume design that is rarely taken into account not only by judges during awards season but by most casual viewers, and that is characterisation.

The most important thing about any costume is its fidelity to the character who is wearing it. You can have years of experience in medieval embroidery under your belt but still turn out a totally inappropriate set of costumes for a King Arthur movie if you haven't thought about the characters. Is this person messy or neat? Do they even care about their appearance? (A possibility that clothing/appearance-obsessed people may well forget, on occasion.) Is it practical or realistic to have them wear a different outfit in every scene?

In films set in the last 30 years, this is more important than ever because of the wider range of clothing available to everyone. In a film like The Young Victoria everyone's clothes would be slightly different because they'd all be sewn and fitted by hand but they would be almost identical in style because to the unschooled eye, fashions were far more uniform until the 20th century. However, a similar film about the events surrounding Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding would require just as much costuming but a far wider range of styles. The Oscar would probably go to the one set 150 years in the past, though, because you'd notice the costumes. 

So, next time you're watching a movie set in 1995, or 2005, or the amorphous "present day" of most relationship dramas and action movies, take a look at what everyone's wearing. And see if it's more or less authentic in relation to the characters' personalities than the costumes worn in a film set a century earlier.

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