The latest project of imaginative director Wes Anderson may be due in March 2014, yet, as the trailer was released just a few days ago, news about its impressive cast quickly spread on the Internet.
His fans may be undoubtedly excited to know that the movie will feature a long list of stars, including Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson among the others, but there are some glorious news for costume design fans as well. The costume designer on The Grand Budapest Hotel is indeed Milena Canonero who turned to the historical Tirelli tailoring house to make the costumes.
Set in the late '20s, the film follows the vicissitudes of Gustave (Fiennes), the much-loved concierge working at a famous European hotel, and lobby boy Zero Moustafa (Revolori). Trouble starts when Madame D. (an aged Swinton rendered unrecognisable thanks to heavy make up that includes a massive grey beehive, wrinkles and age spots) is found murdered. The concierge becomes the prime suspect after he inherits a famous painting. While Gustave and Zero run away from the law and from Madame D.'s angry son, the young boy falls in love with Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), a fellow hotel worker with an enigmatic birth mark on her face.
Apparently, the film will be a bit of a clever assemblage (the poster seems to hint towards a sort of pastel kitsch with some sublime added via Caspar David Friedrich's The Watzmann) with references to Hollywood comedies, vintage moods and the usually bizarre characters who populate Anderson's universe.
Though the director won't rely on the costumes alone to move the story forward, the trailer features quite a few eye-catching scenes with unusual colour pairing such as tomato red and violet or ochre and purple (the latter slightly reminiscent - especially when employed for the hotel staff costumes - of the uniforms in Valerio Zurlini's 1976 film The Desert of the Tartars), while the film poster with that emphasis on pink shades somehow calls to mind the palette favoured by Jean Claude-Duplessis in his porcelain vases and vessels (View this photo).
Milena Canonero - nominated to five Oscars and winner of three Academy Awards - already worked with Anderson on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and collaborated with the Tirelli costume house on Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006). The latter won her an Oscar for best costume designer, inspiring multiple fashion collections, photo shoots and covers on glossy magazines and a barrage of useless ramblings about cute pastel colours on your average style blog.
We may not know what to expect from this film, but you can bet there will be an Oscar nomination for Canonero's costumes. Ah, yes, expect also some Prada pilfering in the S/S 2015 menswear collections and A/W 2014-15 womenswear, almost too probable given that there are already some links with Anderson in previous Prada collections and that he co-directed with Roman Coppola's the advert for the fashion house perfume Candy (starring Léa Seydoux).
PS Thank you, Anna Dello Russo, for copying and pasting on Vogue Japan (25th october 2013) and on your own blog (15 Mach 2014) part of this post (the section about Milena Canonero) without acknowledging it. I know this was probably one of the first posts that came out when you Googled this film, but I thought your 'editing' and consulting jobs would give you enough money to cover time for your own researches online (and I hoped you would do better and more in depth researches). Damn it, if they don't pay you enough to research your pieces and write them in a more original way, do let us know it, because we perfectly understand you may then be in the desperate need of some pocket money for your next Chanel/Fendi bag.
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