Interview

Most designers might survey the telecast of the red carpet at the Kodak Theater to see if their dresses have been chosen by any number of attendees. But for the designers from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Australia, The Duchess, and Revolutionary Road the big win might just come might inside the Academy's Oscar ceremony. In appreciation Interview asked the designers nominated in the category of Best Costume to share their inspirations, sketches, cast gossip, and red carpet fantasies. The designer for The Duchess ruined our royal flush by bowing out: We wish good luck to each designer, equally!

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AUSTRALIA

Name: Catherine Martin
Years in the business: Since the end of 1987. At the end of this year I will have been working for 20 years. I try to celebrate every day of my life. It's a milestone.
Upcoming projects: I'm working on a little thing with dancers for the Oscars. I work in a family business. My husband is a director and he has a loads of projects that he's mulling over, so I'm on tenderhooks. On Australia I did the costumes and the sets. So maybe I'll try that again. Before, on Moulin Rouge, I co-costume designed with someone. This was a big stretch for me. It was huge.

1. What were your main sources of inspiration for the film's looks?
It always starts with the story that the director wants to tell. I'm focused very much on narrative, on the story and the characters who inhabit that story. Baz [Luhrmann] is an incredibly research-oriented director. You have to prove that a costume has a historical background, using specific references. For Australia a lot of the looks came from graphic material that I'd sourced in books. There's a great online resource, Picture Australia. It accumulates digitized images and makes it serarchable online. A significant event is one thing, but when you're researching whether a stockman wore socks with his boots it's incredible. I also interviewed a lot of people who were alive at the time, indigenous people, experts in indigenous body art; we would consult with various artist groups. It was very broad—from a fashion history book for Lady Sarah Ashley to a very casual memory session with an Aboriginal group.

2. Who would you love to dress for this year's Oscars?
I have so many friends in the industry, so I'm happy to be asked by anyone who wants me.

3. What is the craziest idea you've envisioned for a costume?
Soome of the can can girls in Moulin Rouge were a bit racy. We had a grown woman
dressed as a baby with sequins on her frilly bloomers. Or as my children would call it, her front's bottom.

4. Was it more interesting to dress Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley "before" or "after" her character's metamorphosis?
Baz didn't want schizophrenic characters so it was very important to take the two sides of the character's personality, make each look and soften it. But I've always found that more casual clothes are more difficult to put character into. They're less marked. When it's casual it's more subtle and I really enjoy it. It's in a way more difficult to do well than something with a lot of pizzazz.

5. Baz Luhrmann loves color. Did he influence your palette choices for Nicole Kidman?
It was very much taking the color of out of the land. Mandy Walker (the cinematographer), Baz, and I looked at vintage photography and took the palette from that. But the land has such an influence on the character. When Nicole Kidman's Sarah Ashley enters, her first interaction with that land are completely in contrast to the natural. And a her progression of character happens she becomes more one with the land.

6. How did Nicole Kidman's personality, or even her celebrity, affect your costuming choices?
She's always an actress first, and her approach is always about truth to the character. So the discussion we had, with Baz and with her, are about questions of revealing character. Obviously she has a marvelous physique—both she and Hugh Jackman do—and so you have a lot of latitude in what you can do. She did a lot of difficult riding herself, so because we were always looking at the character and the ability to do certain things. Baz likes to do costume workshops where we pull together clothes, and we rehearse in clothes.