2012 ‘Hollywood Costume’ Exhibition At The V&A

February 29, 2012
By: Elisha Jadav

Ever wanted to see the little black dress that Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Or how about Harry Potter’s Gryffindor uniform? Well from October 2012 (far away yes, but plenty of time to make this one exciting exhibition) you can as the Victoria and Albert Museum has announced that its 2012 Autumn exhibition will be celebrating the best of ‘Hollywood Costume’.

Whether they’re the villain or the heroine,  old or new, there are many characters who have become iconic popular figures. When we come to instantly recognise a character through their appearance, costume becomes an integral part of bringing a character to life and this is being celebrated at the V&A ‘Hollywood Costume’ exhibition.

The exhibition will be presenting over 100 of the most iconic costumes worn in a range of films over a century of cinema. Costumes from a variety of  genres and films made between 1912-2012 will be exhibited making this a fascinating opportunity to explore how costume design and cinema as a whole have evolved over the years.

Five years of preparation has gone into the planning, research and searching of many items to be featured in the exhibition which aims to showcase the artistry behind costume design and the importance of costume in the film-making process. Many of the costumes have been archived and stored away over the years and the V&A exhibition will be the first time that many are publicly displayed.

Combining Hollywood, fashion and film, the Hollywood Costume Exhibition is set to be one of the most popular V&A exhibitions of the year. As Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Curator of the ‘Hollywood Costume’ exhibition summarises, ‘Costume designers are storytellers, historians, social commentators and anthropologists. Movies are about people, and costume design plays a pivotal role in bringing these people to life.’

For more information on the exhibition visit www.vam.ac.uk

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Images/Sources used:

www.vam.ac.uk