Congratulations to Mark Bridges who took home the Oscar® for Best Costume Design at the 2012 Academy Awards for The Artist. Bridges has said that the film was a “love letter to Hollywood” and his well-researched costumes show his devotion to the films of the silent era. His costumes, seen in black and white in the film and in color in the exhibition, beautifully tell a story with textures and contrasts.

Mark Bridges for The Artist: “With costumes, you’re always trying to tell the story subliminally. So in the medium of black and white, we used a lot of textures and high contrast when the characters were at their pinnacle and more monochromatic looks when they were down on their heels. It was all about whether there was enough separation in tone because once it goes to black and white, it’s mush. You lose definition.”

The Artist had forminable competition in this category, with Sandy Powell for Hugo, Arianne Phillips for W.E, Michael O’Connor for Jane Eyre, and Lisy Christl for Anonymous. All the nominated costumes are on view at the FIDM Museum’s 20th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibition.

Sandy Powell for Hugo: Powell has won three Oscars for costume design, yet her approach to Hugo was completely different from anything else she has worked on. “Everything is seen as if through the eyes of a child, therefore I wanted to simplify the looks to just one, maybe two outfits for each character. I approached the actual costumes as if they were illustrations from a children’s picture book, keeping the looks simple, graphic and colorful.”

Arianne Phillips (above) for W.E: “After 14 years of collaborating with Madonna, we have a creative ‘short hand,’ an understanding and a language. She is a great director, she has been essentially directing and inspiring me for 14 years. She is detailed, prepared and open to ideas—which creates an atmosphere of creative trust, which is essential to my process. No one understands costumes better than Madonna—from firsthand experience as an actress and performer she has the ability to create characters and tell a story through costumes—she gets it.”

Michael O’Connor for Jane Eyre: Regarding authenticity, “There are different versions of Jane Eyre, but you can always tell the period the movie was made in from hairstyles and such. We wanted to go back to the real thing, and set it really when we thought it was written—especially with the cottons, textiles, and textures we used. They’re all based on real designs of the time… One of my favorite costumes is when, at the end of the film, Jane returns to Thornfield and wears a brown ribbon-print dress which was made from an American cotton print fabric based on prints of the time. Her bonnet is a combination of antique and modern straw, fabricated in an openwork design to give it a lightness."

Lisy Christl for Anonymous: In addition to the film’s main actors, Christl was assigned the arduous task of dressing three different groups of extras (the ‘nobility,’ the ‘bourgeoisie,’ and ‘the crowd’) as well as the film’s theatre actors (the play-within-a-play characters)—a total cast of about 1,500 people. Christl researched the period by reading up on English history and studying portraits from the time period. “In the script, it might say that a costume ‘has seen better days’—that would mean we had to bring the costume to life by aging it and making it look lived in.”

Over 100 costumes from 20 films are in the exhibition, including J Edgar with costumes by Deborah Hopper, Water for Elephants, with costumes by Jacqueline West, The Help with costumes by Sharen Davis, My Week with Marilyn with costumes by Jill Taylor, and Captain America: The First Avenger by costume designer Anna B. Sheppard.

The thousands of visitors who have already come to the museum have appreciated being able to examine the costumes closely, studying the fabrics and the details that cannot always be seen onscreen.

The exhibition runs until April 28, at the FIDM Museum & Galleries.

Exhibition photos: Alex J. Berliner / ABImages

For the opening of the 20th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibition, the costumes, designers, supporters, and the museum itself were the stars. Click here for pictures from opening night.