REVOLUTION STUDIOS
With a clothing change, Julia Stiles becomes a proper '50s lady in "Mona Lisa Smile," as do Julia Roberts and Marcia Gay Harden at left.
Movie wardrobe designer
re-creates ’50s for
‘Mona Lisa Smile’
Imagine a career that entails shopping for vintage clothes, exploring museum textile and clothing collections, and studying imagery of ancient to collectible costumes. What fashion aesthete wouldn't be clamoring for a job like that?
Oh, but can you also piece all that research together to turn out 7,000 garments capturing the essence of an era -- in about 10 1/2 weeks?
That was Michael Dennison's mission as costume designer on the set of "Mona Lisa Smile," a Revolution Studios film that opens tomorrow.
The film stars Julia Roberts as Katherine Watson, an art history teacher who travels from California to Wellesley College in the fall of 1953 to teach the best and the brightest female students in the country, only to find the institution mired in conservatism that confines them as surely as the girdles and cinches around their waists.
Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and newcomer Ginnifer Goodwin portray the young women who, in spite of their education and ambition, are still defined by their limited gender roles.
In Dennison's hands these 21st-century women -- most often cast in roles that put them in the most current styles -- are transformed into perfect buttoned-down 1950s ladies. Self-confessed tomboy Stiles became Bostonian WASP Joan Brandwyn. Ultrahip Dunst had to become uptight Betty Warren.
"As an ensemble they were just a dream to work with, and I'm not saying that because I have to say that," Dennison said in a phone interview. "It was a real give-and-take scenario. I'd work with them in helping them to feel their character, because a certain comfort level has to be there in that they have to feel the person before anything can happen."
The costumes turn out to be a metaphor for the story, with the characters as restricted by society's mores as the foundation garments that molded them into the era's ideal hourglass shape. Gyllenhaal, perhaps typecast since her breakthrough role in "Secretary," plays sexual provocateur Giselle Levy dressed in looser clothing that foreshadow the '60s.
And as soon as the actresses put on the garments, they were transported, Dennison said. "You could see in their silhouette and composure how they started seeing themselves as their characters."
REVOLUTION STUDIOS
Costume designer Michael Dennison had about 10-1/2 weeks to come up with 7,000 costumes for "Mona Lisa Smile."
Among Dennison's creations was a bridal gown for Dunst's character, based on wedding photos of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Grace Kelly.
Costumes also spanned a school year, which meant creating pieces that would take the characters through fall and winter to spring graduation, providing ample work for the dozens put to work altering vintage garments or sewing clothing from scratch, as well as a dozen costumers responsible for fittings. They also made hats, veils, reassembled vintage jewelry found at flea markets and thrift shops, and restrung many a pearl necklace for the rigors of the set.
"We had to reconstruct those pieces to hold up to a grueling schedule," Dennison said. "They're not worn for a couple of hours like everyday jewelry. They're worn 14, 15, 16 hours at a time. They're grabbed at and pulled at, so they need to be supported."
For Dennison, as well as moviegoers, the experience is equivalent to traveling through time.
"It's total escapism, like, whoa! It's wonderful to be able to turn 2003 into 1953, and that extends to the entire ensemble, with everyone wanting to create this world as best as they can, trying not to concede when we don't have to."
DENNISON SAID that as a child he was drawn to Hollywood glamour of the '30s through '50s. He graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in fine arts and moved to New York where he worked at the Brooks Van Horn Costume Co. before designing costume props for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
He worked with the Twyla Tharp Dance Company and John Houseman's Acting Company before switching to films in the early '80s. Among films Dennison worked on as a wardrobe supervisor or costumer are "Cruising," "Grease 2," "The World According to Garp," "Sophie's Choice," "Jagged Edge," "Beaches," "Snow Falling on Cedars," "What Women Want" and "Unfaithful."
More recently he was assistant costume designer on Paul Schrader's acclaimed "Auto Focus," and he co-designed the upcoming "The Chronicles of Riddick" with Ellen Mirojnick. The futuristic movie starring Vin Diesel and Judy Dench will open next year.
One thing he won't do is share his thoughts on the best-clothed films, as he believes there are too many variables to make a fair assessment.
"Nobody knows what a designer's situation is, what kind of deadline they're working under or whether they have the smallest budget in the world," Dennison said. "Some budgets run in the millions of dollars, and they might not use it as constructively as they could have.
"I respect any designer who has work up there on the big screen, because I know what it takes to get there."
For now, his dream project would involve distant time travel. "I'd like to go way back for a while, maybe the 14th or 15th century."
These days more films seem to be more style-, than plot-driven. Just this year, we've seen such frothy wardrobe-centric films as "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde," "Down with Love," "Underworld" and "Downtown Girls."
And if there were ever a story tailor-made to be filmed from the wardrobe up, Dennison says, "'The Devil Wears Prada' could certainly be it.'"
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