Hollywood Costume Exhibition

Last week I was lucky enough to be in Melbourne and have a bit of spare time to visit the Hollywood Costume Exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).

The exhibition doesn't just bring together a fabulous collection of costumes from film from a period of 100 years, but illustrates the costume designer's creative process from script to screen.

It was amazing to see costumes worn by Marilyn Munroe, Liz Taylor, Ginger Rogers, Hedy Lamarr and Audrey Hepburn.

Costume for Liza Elliot (Ginger Rogers) in Lady in the Dark, 1944

Many of the costumes were displayed in an interesting way with the mannequins having monitors for heads which played a loop of video of the actor's face.

There were the iconic costumes such as the green velvet curtain dress from Gone With the Wind, Marilyn Munroe's subway grate dress from The Seven Year Itch and Dorothy's gingham dress from The Wizard of Oz.

There were also costumes from more recent movies such as Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hunger Games and The Great Gatsby.

Costumes from the Great Gatsby

Interviews with stars, directors and designers provided more detailed background for some costumes such as the green suit worn by Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Daniel Day-Lewis' Bill the Butcher costume from Gangs of New York - both movies that I have seen recently.

Costume for Tippi Hedren in The Birds

There was a spotlight on Meryl Streep and her many transformations in the movies including Out of Africa, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Iron Lady.

Basically, the exhibition had to be seen to be believed! So if you get a chance, get along to it.

Now I am looking forward to seeing the James Bond exhibition coming to the Melbourne Museum later this year.