My personal top 25 favorite costume designers
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Born in Sydney, Australia, she is a costume and production designer. She is a specialist in period costume from the 19th century. All four of her Oscar nominated films are of that era. A noted recluse who rarely does interviews or attends awards ceremony's, between jobs she returns to a quite home life with her family.The Piano, Portrait of a Lady, Bright Star, etc.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Art Director
Jany Temime was born in France. She is known for Skyfall (2012), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) and Judy (2019).Most known for the Harry Potter series, films 3-8, etc.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Alexandra Byrne was born in 1962. She is a costume designer, known for Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Emma. (2020) and Doctor Strange (2016). She has been married to Simon Shepherd since 1980. They have four children.Hamlet, Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Phantom of the Opera, etc. Her period pieces are beautiful.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Gwen Wakeling was born in Detroit. Her father was a mining engineer whose work resulted in the family moving every few years, and she wound up living everywhere from Seattle to Los Angeles to Prescott, Arizona. Upon graduating high school she got a job as a fashion artist in a department store. She soon was hired by director Cecil B. DeMille when he was working for Pathe Studios, and he took her with him when he moved over to Paramount Pictures. In 1933 she went to work for Fox Films as the studio's head costume designer. In 1941 she suffered the traumas of a death in her family and a serious illness because of a ruptured appendix, and quit Fox the next year and became a freelancer. She later married writer/director Henry J. Staudigl. She won an Oscar for costume design for Samson and Delilah (1949).Big in the 30's and 40's. Only won one Oscar for "Samson and Delilah" (1949).- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
She studied stage management and design at RADA and on graduation began in London's Fringe Theatre, the Open Space Theatre and Hampstead Theatre Club. This all led to West End productions, and commissions from The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre.. She was recruited by London Weekend Television to work on their productions until in 1983, having built up a good reputation, she began working in feature films working on 'Loose Connections' and 'Laughterhouse' for Richard Eyre. and 'High Hopes'' and 'Naked' for Mike Leigh and . 'Life is Sweet' and 'My Beautiful Laundrette ' for Stephen Frears.Known for her collaborations with Mike Leigh, Christopher Nolan's Batman series, and the second Harry Potter film.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Jacqueline Durran is known for Beauty and the Beast (2017), Atonement (2007) and Anna Karenina (2012).Collaborations with Joe Wright, and for the "famous" green dress in Atonement (2007).- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Additional Crew
Orry-Kelly helped to revolutionize the Warners Costume Department after he joined the studio in 1932. He was one of the first legitimate fashion designers to design for the cinema Although he could easily adapt himself to the tattered prison uniforms of "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", he was most at home in the world of haute couture. He also played a special role in glamourizing such stars as Bette Davis, whom he first costumed when she played a society party girl in "The Rich Are Always with Us" in 1932, and later helped through the transformation from ugly duckling to glamorous swan in "Now, Voyager". The Australian-born designer won an Oscar for his work on "An American in Paris" in 1951. He died in 1964 at the age of 66.From the 30's to the early 60's, he designed gowns for the many great actresses of those era's.- Costume Designer
- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Shirley Russell was born on 11 March 1935 in London, England, UK. She was a costume designer and actress, known for Hope and Glory (1987), Yanks (1979) and Reds (1981). She was married to Ken Russell. She died on 4 March 2002 in England, UK.Agatha, Reds, Hope and Glory, etc.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Judianna was born on August 24, 1955. As a child she joined the Metropolitan Opera ballet and children's chorus but was always more interested in what went on backstage to produce a show. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago and Yale Drama School she worked as an assistant to Jane Greenwood, the English designer who had been one of her teachers at Yale and who introduced her to Milena Canonero. She became Milena's assistant designer on 'The Cotton Club' and 'Dick Tracy' and worked as an associate and co-designer before becoming a credited costume designer in her own right on the films 'Gardens of Stone' and 'Big'. She has been associated with two of the most profitable and enjoyed franchises of the early 21st century with the Harry Potter films and the Hunger Games adaptations the latter, reuniting her with 'Big's writer Gary Ross.Known for Pleasantville, The Hunger Games, and of course the original designer for the Harry Potter costumes.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Actress
Jenny Beavan was born in London, England, UK. Jenny is a costume designer and actor, known for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Cruella (2021) and The King's Speech (2010). Jenny was previously married to Ian Albery.Known for Howards End, Sense and Sensibility, Gosford Park, The King's Speech, etc. Usually subtle but very beautiful.- Costume Designer
- Art Department
- Camera and Electrical Department
Cecil Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in London, England, UK. He was a costume designer, known for My Fair Lady (1964), Gigi (1958) and Anna Karenina (1948). He died on 18 January 1980 in Broadchalke, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK.His costumes for Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964) are well known. Appropriate for the time period but also colorful and stylish.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Art Department
Nominated for fifteen Academy Awards, charismatic costumer Irene Sharaff once declared "you can acquire chic and elegance, but style itself is a a rare thing" (NY Times, August 17, 1993). During her long and distinguished career, Sharaff became known as much for her meticulous attention to detail and her sense of colour as for her versatility in adapting to many genres and periods. For this, she drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources, which included impressionist and post-impressionist painting.
Irene Sharaff received her training from the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, the Arts Student League and at La Grande Chaumiere in Paris. Her first work in the world of fashion was as illustrator for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. She then served a two-year apprenticeship as assistant designer under Aline Bernstein at the Civic Repertory Theatre Company. Her first own creations appeared in Broadway by 1932. She also added scenery design to her portfolio for Eva Le Gallienne's production of "Alice in Wonderland" (1932) and for the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. Further accolades came her way for her costuming of Gertrude Lawrence, who played a fashion designer in "Lady in the Dark". Sharaff was nothing, if not prolific on Broadway, beginning with the musical revue "As Thousands Cheer" (1934), for which she created an entire ensemble of sepia-toned costumes to resemble early rotogravure pictures. Her versatility also encompassed designing for the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet. Her private time was spent sculpting and painting.
Sharaff eventually attracted the attention of Hollywood producers. However, she would only spend a total of four years under contract: at MGM, for the Arthur Freed unit, between 1943 and 1945; and at RKO from 1946 to 1948. The rest of her time in Hollywood was strictly free-lance. At MGM, her use of vibrant colours (she was fond of saying, that she saw everything "in blocks of colour"), became ideally suited to the new Technicolor process. An understanding of movement in the design of dresses also became a key element in her work on musicals. Sharaff did her best designs in the 1950's on Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), An American in Paris (1951), Guys and Dolls (1955) and The King and I (1956). For the latter, she created history twice: first, by convincing Yul Brynner to shave his head; secondly, for her prodigious use of Thai silk, which created such a stir in the world of high fashion that the product ended up becoming Thailand's number one export.
From the late 1950's, Sharaff often alternated work on the same production for both Broadway and Hollywood, notably West Side Story (1961)(stage version, 1964) , Flower Drum Song (1961) (stage version, 1958) and Funny Girl (1968) (stage version, 1964). She became a favorite costumer of Elizabeth Taylor, designing in starkly contrasting styles the bohemian/swinging sixties outfits she wore in The Sandpiper (1965), her flowing, ornate renaissance dress in The Taming of The Shrew (1967) and, in collaboration with Renié, her opulent costumes for Cleopatra (1963).Known for The King and I, West Side Story, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hello Dolly, etc.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Albert Wolsky was born in Paris, France in 1930. He graduated from City College of New York and began to work in the travel industry. After several years of doing this, he decided at age 30, he wanted to pursue a career as a costume designer. His first entree was working as a "gofor" to legendary costume maker Helene Pons during her execution of the Adrian/Tony Duquette designs for the original Broadway production of "CAMELOT". His abilities were noticed by many of the designers working with Miss Pons and he began to work his way up to assisting some of the highest regarded designers in New York, including Theoni Aldridge. Within six years, he was designing Broadway productions under his own name and in 1968, he would have his first film credit, "HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER".
Bringing the knowlege he learned while working on Broadway, Mr. Wolsky would concentrate his career on the designing of feature films. Over the next three decades he would build a body of work impressive not only by size but by it's addressing every possible film genre with a consistant level of design quality. His easy manner and eye for detail would not only bring him repeat assignments from his colleaugues but earn him the reputation as both Paul Muzarsky's and the late Bob Fosse's costume designer. To date, he has been nominated for the Academy Award five times, winning it twice. He was also honored by The Costume Designer's Guild with their lifetime achievement award.Grease, All That Jazz, Bugsy, Across the Universe, etc.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Adrian Adolph Greenburg, born in Naugatuck, Connecticut, March 3, 1903, to Gilbert and Helena (Pollack) Greenburg. He began his professional career while still attending the New York School for Fine and Applied Arts by contributing to the costumes for "George White's Scandals" in 1921. He is credited for that production by his created name of Gilbert Adrian, a combination of his father's first name and his own. He transferred to NYSFAA's Paris campus in 1922 and while there was hired by Irving Berlin. In the fall of 1922 he returned to New York and began work on Berlin's 1922-1923 edition of "The Music Box Revue". Adrian continued to work on the Berlin reviews as well as other theatrical and film projects.
His big film break was designing costumes for Mae Murray in her first M.G.M. film, The Merry Widow (1925). He was then hired by Natacha Rambova to design for the independent films of her husband, Rudolph Valentino. In mid-1925, after designing costumes for the prologue of "The Gold Rush" at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Adrian was hired by Cecil B. DeMille to become head of the wardrobe department at his new studio. When DeMille moved to M.G.M. in 1928, Adrian moved there also. When his DeMille contract expired, Adrian signed with M.G.M. and remained with that studio until 1942.
He opened his own very successful couture business and continued to do some films until such time as his business expanded, with a salon in New York as well as Beverly Hills. His fashions were sold in department stores around the U.S. and he was the recipient of the 1944 Coty Award for Fashion. He also received a Lord & Taylor award for his work on Marie Antoinette (1938) in 1938 and a special award from Parsons, the successor to NYSFAA. His last film was Lovely to Look At (1952). He retired from the fashion industry in 1952 after a heart attack. He relocated to Brazil with his wife (since 1938) actress Janet Gaynor and their son, Robin. He returned to the U.S. to do "Grand Hotel", a musical with Viveca Lindfors and Paul Muni and his last career credit was the costume design for the Broadway musical "Camelot". He was working on this production when he died of a heart attack on September 13, 1959. Adrian never received an Oscar.IMHO, the "Reigning King" of Hollywood costume designers. Dressed many of the best actors and actresses back in the day.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
- Actress
Patricia Field was born on 12 February 1941 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a costume designer and actress, known for The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Sex and the City (1998) and Sex and the City (2008).Known for her hip, sexy, fun, and chic designs for the likes of Sex and the City, and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).- Costume Designer
- Production Designer
- Special Effects
James Acheson was born on 13 March 1946 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England, UK. He is a costume designer and production designer, known for The Last Emperor (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and The Man in the Iron Mask (1998).Known for The Last Emperor, Dangerous Liaisons, Wuthering Heights, Restoration, and the Spider Man movies. Very gorgeous designs for 17th-18th century period pieces.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Three time Academy Award-winning costume designer Anthony Powell had an interesting range of films, from costume period films to more contemporary settings, working with an impressive list of directors such as Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, George Cukor and William Friedkin. Powell contributed with the fashion and style of iconic characters like Indiana Jones, Cruela de Vil and Hercule Poirot in several films, and also works that bring a touch of class whether being the refined looks of the characters in Frantic (1988) or the colorful and detailed extravagance of a fantasy like Hook (1991), transforming Dustin Hoffman into an authentic and menacing pirate.
Right with his second film credit, Travels with My Aunt (1972), he won his first Oscar, an award he would receive two other times for his works in Death on the Nile (1978) and Tess (1979), and three other nominations for Pirates (1986), Hook (1991) and 102 Dalmatians (2000). But audiences were more familiar with Powell's career with the successful Indiana Jones trilogy (1981, 1984 and 1989), where he explored styles representing the early 20th Century in fascinating compositions, and the iconic hat and whip of Jones.Has so far won three Oscars and one BAFTA, but is probably more known for doing the second and third Indiana Jones movies...- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Art Department
Gabriella Pescucci was born in Rosignano Solvay in Tuscany in 1943 and began her film career as an assistant to Piero Tosi in the late 1960s. By the 1970s she was working as a costume designer in her own right with several films for Giovanni Patroni Griffi and also for Fellini, making her international debut in 1984 with 'Once Upon a Time in America', for which she took the first of her two British Film Academy Awards, the second being for 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen'. In addition to her film work she has designed for the opera, notably 'La Traviata' at the Archimboldi Theatre, Milan and 'A Masked Ball' at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C.Very versatile. She can go from 20's era 'Once Upon a Time in America' (1984), to 18th century 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' (1988), to 19th century 'The Age of Innocence' (1993), to a semi-steampunkish landscape of 'Van Helsing' (2004); to the modern-ish quirkiness of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' (2005), to the ancient (and animated) world of 'Beowulf' (2007). Very talented indeed.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Actress
Ann Roth was born on 30 October 1931 in Hanover, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a costume designer and actress, known for Barbie (2023), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) and The English Patient (1996).Known for The English Patient, The Hours, Cold Mountain, etc. Very elegant and classy.- Producer
- Costume Designer
- Production Designer
Catherine Martin was born on 26 January 1965 in Lindfield, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is a producer and costume designer, known for Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Great Gatsby (2013) and Australia (2008). She has been married to Baz Luhrmann since 26 January 1997. They have two children.Known for her collaborations with filmmaker (and husband) Baz Luhrmann. She has an outrageous and eccentric style that perfectly matches that of Luhrmann. Big, bright, colorful, wacky, and so gorgeous.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
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Milena Canonero grew up in Genoa. She studied design and costume in Genoa before moving to England to finish her studies. Milena's film career started with Stanley Kubrick, designing the costumes for three of his films: Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), winning her first of her four academy awards, and The Shining (1980). Milena has worked with Alan Parker, Midnight Express (1978), Hugh Hudson, Chariots of Fire (1981) her second Oscar. Francis F. Coppola, Cotton Club (1984), Godfather III (1990), Sydney Pollock, Out of Africa (1985), Louis Malle, Damage (1992), Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy (1990) and Bulworth (1998) Julie Taymor, Titus (1999) Roman Polanski, Carnage (2011), and the legendary director, Manoel De Oliveira, Belle Toujours (2006), Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette (2006) brought her third Oscar. She has also production designed Barbet Schroeder's Single White Female (1992) and Leonardo Guerra Seragnoli's Last Summer 2014 and designed costumes for opera productions at La Scala, The Vienna opera House, The Metropolitan Opera and the Garnier Opera de Paris. She was also a producer on Romeo and Juliet (2013). Canonero has collaborated with Wes Anderson on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) winning her fourth Oscar.Had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick, and is known for Barry Lyndon, and Marie Antoinette, etc. Both of those films she has been nominated for the BAFTA and won the Oscars, and both are just wonderful eye candy.- Costume Designer
- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Londoner, Sandy, studied at St Martins School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design where she specialised in theatre design, She started her professional career in fringe with the National Theatre working on numerous productions including Orders of Obedience and Rococo, She went on to design sets and costumes for productions of Lumiere and Son, Bright Side and Culture Vulture, As a student and one of the leading lights of the international theatre scene she most admired was Lindsay Kemp, the gifted director, designer and performer, On impulse she spoke to him on the phone and said how much she wanted to work with him, After seeing samples of her work he asked her to join him in Milan as costume designer for his theatre company, During her 3 year spell with him she worked on Nijinsky which was a study of the start and madness of the great Russian dancer, She also designed the costumes for The Big Parade, a tragic- comic homage to the silent screen, and the stage and screen versions of A Midsummer Nights Dream, In 1985 she rapidly established herself in the world of video working on many pop promos with director Derek Jarman and with him on his film Caravaggio, and Zenith's For Queen and CountryAlso versatile in a similar way that Pescucci is. She can create costumes for of many eras like that of 'Orlando' (1992), or do 70's glam rock of 'Velvet Goldmine' (1998), or Shakespeare in Love, The Young Victoria, or 'The Tempest', etc. She is very unique.- Costume Designer
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Colleen Atwood was born on 25 September 1948 in Ellensburg, Washington, USA. She is a costume designer, known for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and Chicago (2002).Known for her collaborations with Tim Burton. A very dark and wacky style, perfect for Burton. And also very lovely with a hint of elegance. Imo, definitely one of my favorites.- Costume Designer
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Edith Head was born on 28 October 1897 in San Bernardino, California, USA. She was a costume designer and actress, known for Sabrina (1954), All About Eve (1950) and Roman Holiday (1953). She was married to Wiard Ihnen and Charles Head. She died on 24 October 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA.IMHO, (just like Adrian) she's the "Reigning Queen" of Hollywood costume designers. Likewise, she designed for many of the most popular actors and actresses of the day.- Costume Designer
- Director
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Eiko Ishioka was born on 12 July 1938 in Tokyo, Japan. She was a costume designer and director, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Cell (2000) and The Fall (2006). She was married to Nico Soultanakis. She died on 21 January 2012 in Tokyo, Japan.My absolute favorite. Her style was just so breathtakingly out of this world. Way ahead of her time. Her most famous film, that she won an Oscar for, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992); stands out as a true visual feast. There will never be anyone else like her.