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Oscar Bites #9 – BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Once a hallowed ground for out-of-the-box nominations, unfortunately this category also fell to the default temptation of the musical chair revolvers. Thank god for a truly bonkers nomination to shake things up from a film that we thought might have had more muscle elsewhere earlier in the season.

The nominees are:
-Avatar: Fire and Ash
-Frankenstein
-Hamnet
-Marty Supreme
-Sinners

In order of preference:
5) MARTY SUPREME (Miyako Bellizzi)
Several of this year’s costume design nominees play more supporting roles rather than grabbing all the attention, and Marty Supreme is certainly no exception. Lots of meat and potatoes 1950s fashion, and the contrast between the likes of Marty’s gritty Jewish ghetto origins and the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow’s classy high fashion helps demonstrate the heights to which Marty is aspiring to. Good glasses work, too.

4) SINNERS (Ruth E. Carter)
The only Black woman to have two Oscars in history is back to costume a cast of thousands. While her work in the Black Panther movies was all about African spectacle, the costumery here is all about period authenticity and supporting the story. Obviously The Scene has some fun costume choices as we travel through time but I appreciate that throughout the course of the movie, the themes of the Black community in this town trying to both not stand out when they are around the White folk but still getting a space of their to celebrate their Blackness is shone through in the costume choices during the day when they are out and about versus night when they are letting loose.

3) AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (Deborah Scott)
OK so I was ready to rank last for the same reason that made everyone go WTF at this nomination: aren’t all the costumes just CGI??? So I decided to educate myself and watched a featurette on the costumes of this movie and I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the work that goes into both designing these costumes and, much to my surprise, actually making physical samples of the work so that the visual effects team could scan and use them for the final product. Four distinct Na’vi tribes show up in this film and each of them have their own distinct style and visual cues, and yeah I guess there are some humans in fatigues too.

2) HAMNET (Malgosia Turzanska)
Much like my appreciation of Hamnet’s production design, I think I just really appreciate how the costume design really helps to give this film its own distinct lived-in visual language. Again, nothing frilly or wild, but following the Shakespeare family as they live through the grief and aftermath of a family tragedy, even the costume language complements the highs and lows of their journey.

1) FRANKENSTEIN (Kate Hawley)
Mia Goth’s red veil. Mia Goth’s blue feather fascinator. Mia Goth’s wedding dress. Done, game over, wrap it up, engrave the Oscar. (There’s other stuff too, particularly playing off of Jacob Elordi’s lanky, inhuman figure, but c’mon, this is the Mia Goth fashion show.)

• WILL WIN: Frankenstein
• COULD WIN: idk this doesn’t feel particularly close, maybe Hamnet
• SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE: For all its perceived faults, Wicked: For Good still brought it with its costumery on this outing. Elphaba’s Sex Cardigan will be a hot Halloween sighting this year.