Winners of 17th Costume Designer Guild Awards!

The 17th Costume Designer Guild Awards (CDG) were held on February 17th. We want to give a huge congratulations to all of the winners, many of whom are our friends and customers.  This will be remembered as a very competitive year including innovative projects like Boyhood,  chronicling the life of a boy and his family over twelve years, the chilling American Horror Story, the fairy tale world of Into the Woods and the surrealistic world of Raymond Carver’s tale Birdman just to name a few of the nominees. The pool of talent was extraordinary! 

The recipient in the Contemporary category was our friend Albert Wolsky.We profiled him in MWS:Shoptalk when he received the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Theatre Development Fund, an award the CDG had bestowed upon him in 1999. There have also been seven Oscar nominations with two statuettes bestowed along with two previous CDG nominations, in 2002 for Road to Perdition and 2008’s Revolutionary Road.

In the many interviews that Albert has given about his work on Birdman he says that the work in movies like this is “invisible.” by design, and often that leads to a lack of appreciation for what goes into costuming a contemporary film. Albert believes that his primary job  is to tell character. “Who are these people and what are they doing and in plain, modern clothes, every day, in and out?” Throughout Albert’s career he has been known for the rapport he  establishes with his actors. His goal is for the actors to feel that as their characters, they are wearing their own clothes.

Although Raymond Carver set his plays in the 70’s, Albert decided that going back to the 50’s for the theater piece  was the way to go. He presented this concept to Kevin Thompson, the Production Designer, who agreed that this was a good period for the production within the production. Albert’s meticulous attention to detail even demanded that he use vintage fabrics in the building of the period clothes. The period fabric, he explains, provides a different hang and movement than contemporary garments.

With only 6 weeks to shoot the film and huge budgetary restrictions Albert worked with a limited crew of seasoned pros to get the job done. We want to congratulate his team for their hard work and dedication:

Assistant Costume Designer: Sue Gandy

Wardrobe Supervisor: Marcia Patten

Set Costumers:  Winsome McCoy and Monica Ruiz-Ziegler

Along with Albert we salute all of this year’s winners:

OUTSTANDING MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIE OR MINI- SERIES        

American Horror Story: Freak Show – Lou Eyrich

OUTSTANDING PERIOD/FANTASY TELEVISION SERIES
Game of Thrones – Michele Clapton

OUTSTANDING CONTEMPORARY TELEVISION SERIES
True Detective – Jenny Eagan

EXCELLENCE IN COMMERCIAL COSTUME DESIGN
Army ‘Defy Expectations, Villagers’ – Christopher Lawrence

EXCELLENCE IN FANTASY FILM
Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood

EXCELLENCE IN PERIOD FILM
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero

EXCELLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY FILM
Birdman – Albert Wolsky

Congratulations to the Costume Designer Guild Award winners for 2015! We can’t wait to see what the next year brings.