All Dressed Up and Ready To Go to the Oscar.

Who will be the new winner of the Oscar statuette for Best Costume Design in 2010?

By Karen Ostlund

Oscar's Best Dressed

HOLLYWOOD,CA(Hollywood Today)2/9/2010– FIDM Museum & Galleries in downtown Los Angeles have the answer.

The 18th annual exhibition ” The Art Of Motion Picture Costume Design” will  open to the public,  Tuesday, February 9th and continue through Saturday, April 17th.

Over 100 costumes from over 20 films of 2009  will be featured, including last years’ winner Michael O’Connor from “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” and 2008 winner “The Duchess” from the same costume designer.

Garments showing from 2009  Oscar winner “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”,  were worn by actor: Keira Knightley as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Ralph Fiennes as The Duke of Devonshire.

2010 Academy Award Nominee for Best Costume are:

Janet Patterson  from  “Bright Star”

Sandy Powell    from “The Young Victoria”

Monique Prudhomme from “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus”

Collen Atwood from “Nine”

Catherine Leterrier from “Coco – Before Chanel”

The winner will presented at Kodak theatre in Hollywood, March 7^th 2010.

Coordinator Mary Burrough explained about the missing collection of the five nominee’:

“All costumes from our Oscar nominee’s  are present in this new exhibition, except the garments from the movie “Coco – Before Chanel”,They belong to the privat Chanel House”

BAFTA, British Academy of Film and Television have four nominated costumes in the exhibition, for their BAFTA Awards, February 21^st 2010::

Janet Patterson  from “Bright Star”

Odile Dicks-Mireaux  from “An Education”

Arianne Phillips from “A Single Man”

Sandy Powell from “ The Young Victoria”

The Costume Designers Guild have six nominated costumes presented, and the Guilds’ final winner will be announced February 25^th, in the categories,”Excellence in Period Film” and “Excellence in Fantasy Film”:

Ann Roth  from “Julia & Julia”

Colleen Atwood  from “Nine”

Jenny Beavan  from “Sherlock Holmes”

Sandy Powell  from “The Young Victoria”

Monique Prudhomme  from “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”

Michael Kaplan  from “Star Trek”

So what have the four designers to say about their Oscar nominated costumes?

Monique Prudhomme explain the concept of her garments:

-“The are creations from both the Middle Ages as well as from the Renaissance.It’s a mix of every period and every ethnicity that I found interesting”

Colleen Atwood,  best known for making the clothes of  Johnny Depps’ character in the movies “Public Enemies” (2009) and Sweeney Todd” (2007).                                                                 She  admits:-”I watch a lot of Italian cinema,  which influenced the style of the garments in  the movie Nine”.

In the film she used over 1.000.000 crystallized Swarovski elements to 36 costumes, and nine different applications of crystal in 31 styles and 22  colors to make the actors of “Nine” to stand

out.

Janet Patterson, says:

-“Dressing 18-year-old Fanny in “Bright Star” was an exceptional challenge because she was playing with her own identity and creativity though her costumes”

Sandy Powell was allowed access to the archive at Kensington Palace of Victoria’s own clothes in the making of “The Young Victoria”:

-“Visting the archive was useful and inspirational, because there no photographes of Victoria until she was much older in the 1860’s”

“Apart from that, research was made the usual way, which is looking at paintings and other contemporary sources”. “For me it is remarkable how tiny the clothes were at that time era”

FIDM Museum & Galleries are open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm, and admission is  free of charge.