Analyzing the costumes in Wes Anderson movies 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 🌙 🏨

hey welcome back uh today i'm gonna be talking about the costume design in three wes anderson films the royal teneme bombs moonrise kingdom and the graham budapest hotel the costume design in these films is not only immaculate and visually stunning but they also give important insight to the characters and the themes of the movies so without further ado let's get started royal tenenbaum and his wife ethelene had three children chaz margo and ritchie all three children were prodigies however as they become adults all the kids succumb to failure and disaster 22 years after getting separated and moving out now broke and homeless royal fakes terminal stomach cancer to win back his wife and children the family congregates back to the house they all grew up in and confront their baggage clothing is one of the easiest ways to pick character the way someone dresses um styles their hair puts on makeup just says a lot about them as it does for someone in real life wearing the same outfits in childhood and in adulthood is one of the easiest ways to show arrested development in film we see this very clearly with margot tenenbaum who wears the same exact outfit she wore as a child margo wears a luxurious vintage looking trench style mint coat dark brown loafers in a birkin bag lacoste provided the fabric and the alligator logo for patch to make the two striped tennis dresses that margaret wears underneath as lacoste did not make striped dresses at the time on its own margo's outfit portrays a rebellious rich girl the fur coat loafers and birkins signify wealth but she also wears smudged black eyeliner and a hair clip to signify youthful rebellion the tennis dresses she wears also emphasize her posh upbringing regularly going to country clubs however the silhouette is tight and figure-hugging showing us once again that there is this undertone of provocativeness the tennis dresses also draw a subtle visual connection to richie who we later find out plays a romantic interest the fact that she wears the same outfit that she did as a 12 year old shows that this is the age that she's peaked when we see her for the first time as an adult she's already deep in her slump spending hours in the bathtub watching tv she was a gifted child that is burnt out and become disillusioned with adulthood kind of same as for richie he is a fallen pro tennis player whose career flopped after a meltdown on the court a meltdown triggered by margot's new marriage he continues to wear aspects of his tennis uniform such as shirts shoes and a sweatband to show that he is still clinging on to his previous success patch also said that his design is a nod to bjorn borg a famous tennis player in the 70s he's to put it simply static in his life unable to let go of his career or margot he tries to go away for a year to forget about her but visually we can see there is no change in his costume and therefore no change in his mindset richie also wears large sunglasses and dawn's beard to hide his true self from the outside world and this true self is the one that loves margot shaving his beard during this scene shows him coming to terms with reality by changing his appearance he's trying to let go of his past self aka let go of margot he attempts suicide because he realizes that his hair is not just an appearance factor but a cover up and when facing his true self he realizes he's unable to let go of margot chaz has less of an obvious arrest to development wearing a completely different outfit than he wore at his prime his nervous breakdown is the result of losing his wife in a plane crash however when we look back at his childhood we can see how his father stealing from him and breaking game rules to shoot his own son has heightened his paranoia in need for control he famously wears a fire engine red adidas track suit and matches with his two sons who've come to look like mini versions of himself this matching is done to indicate his controlling neurotic behavior as well as his stress to create his own safe family having been neglected by his father who's always preferred richie the bright red he wears symbolizes his high alertness and paranoia and of course he wears a tracksuit for easier mobility in case of emergency so seeing how all these costumes represent and arrest the development it's understandable why some of us would ask why do these characters wear the same exact costumes at the end do they not grow throughout the course of the movie and my interpretation of this film is that the children are not supposed to succeed and they don't they don't succeed in a very traditional way they don't overcome any specific hurdles in their career they just learn to carry on chas seems to have relaxed a little bit but that doesn't erase the neglect and manipulation he felt as a child nor the fact his wife and now his father are still gone although richie's finally voiced his feelings there's not much he and margot can do without being frowned upon by society he also doesn't go pro again but instead moves on with his life through teaching tennis and margot who's finally written a play doesn't gain any renewed fame or glowing reviews that incite a new blossoming career she also claims she's trying to quit smoking at her mother's wedding but we see her smoking again later i think the point of the movie is not about the actual accomplishments or necessarily overcoming and succeeding in a traditional american dream kind of way but just emphasizing the importance of family and the importance of your family helping you through the ups and downs of your life and your ability to just carry on set on an island off the coast of new england called new penzance in 1965 12 year old sam and susie have fallen in love and decide to run away sam is an orphan and a social outcast described as emotionally disturbed by his foster parents and peers susie is described as a troubled child by her parents and is prone to aggressive outbursts a violent storm is approaching the island so a desperate search party sets out for them suzy bishop wears a mod dress with a peter pan collar and she wears knee-high socks and saddle shoes just a bit of fashion history trivia because we all love that um mod comes from younger people like the mod style and in the 1960s there was actually a phenomenon called uh the youthquake which basically um described the whole phenomenon of the fashion industry moving away from taking inspiration from couture houses to taking inspiration from younger people also even though saddle shoes peaked in the 1950s a bunch of schools still continued to make saddle shoes part of their dress code up until the 1990s so susie's costume is pretty accurate the khaki scout costumes are clearly based on 1960s boy scout uniforms as well so sam's outfit is also pretty accurate susie wears pink for the majority of the movie pink symbolizes youth and romance so this color reading gives us insight to her true character what susie's parents and adults believe is that she is a troubled child and her finding their book coping with the very troubled child is a major reason for her wanting to run away susie also stabs a khaki scout with scissors and the adults simplify her action as just being the actions of an aggressive child however through her pink clothing it is coded that beneath susie's seemingly misguided tough exterior she really is just a sweet and romantic girl at heart by the end of the movie it's a little bit unclear about what happens to sam and susie um the narrator tells us that the final scene happens one year after the main events of the film we know sam is still living with captain sharp because he wears a mini version of sharp's police uniform we also assume sue's parents are doing better because they call susie down for a family dinner which implies the parents are being less neglectful towards each other and their kids this heavily contrasts the beginning sequences which show everyone in the bishop household left to their own devices and even susie's brothers are depicted eating by themselves even though the film never explicitly says so we can assume susie's bad behavior stemmed from her parents marital issues and their neglect for their children we also see susie wearing a yellow dress in the final frames this is the first time susie wears yellow yellow is used predominantly in this film to represent youth and security and warmth many significant objects in this film are yellow including suzy's suitcase sam's tent and the khaki scout neckerchief all which evoke or carry these connotations for example when sam hurts susie's feelings he offers his neckerchip as an apology to wipe away her tears and to restore their friendship having susie wear yellow is a wonderful way to tell the audience that she's doing all right in contrast to yellow the film uses deep blue to symbolize danger most notable is when sam and susie almost commit suicide jumping off the bell tower scene in the middle of a storm we can see that carrying over to costume design with social services costume social services yes that is her name wears a blue almost identical to the danger coat of blue to represent how she is the villain in this movie and her intentions to put sam through electroshock therapy and eventually into juvenile refuge are dangerous and do not prioritize his well-being it's pretty clear that the narrative pushes an anti-institutional stance through color coding but also by the fact that the character is dehumanized by not having a real name the grand budapest hotel is a popular european ski resort for the rich and elite mostly set in the 1930s on the edge of world war ii monsieur gustav is the hotel concierge and zero is the junior lobby boy who quickly becomes gustav's protege gustav runs a tight ship taking service very seriously and even takes on many of the elderly female guests as lovers when one of them madame d mysteriously dies gustav is framed for the murder the movie is for the most part narrated by zero and takes the form of a flashback the hotel is located in zubroka a fictional european republic gustav wears a purple tailcoat with notched lapels and a red bow tie he's extremely prim proper polished pristine and purple the deep purple he wears and technically what all the hotel employees wear serve to emphasize the reality of the hotel purple has always been connotated with luxury and grandeur both of which are associated with the grand budapest gustav also wears the emblem of the society of the cross keys which is an international network of concierges and high-class hotels that assist each other this is based on the real-life society of golden keys which still exists today the society of golden keys was established in paris in 1929 but it wasn't until 1953 that they adopted a badge and not until 1998 that boucher produced the official version we see today the golden keys insignia is very very similar to the one we see in the movie and they actually endorse this recreation to be a member is an honor and the results of a pretty selective process so the fact that gustav is wearing one definitely adds to his prestige but also alludes to his innocence xero wears a similar uniform though his looks cheaper with noticeable wrinkles probably to show that he's still new and budding in this hotel world with the exception of gustav's prison uniform the two dress very much alike for the entire movie this puts a further visual emphasis on showing that zero is gustav's apprentice and why it makes sense that gustav would pick zero as his successor later on after gustav gets arrested he wears a striped prison uniform prison stripes in america originated in the 1820s and were designed to make prisoners immediately recognizable as criminals to further degrade them as they worked in chain gangs and also to aid in capturing them again when or if they escaped by the early 1900s prison stripes started going out of style because society deemed them as being unnecessarily disgraceful of course the grand budapest takes place in europe which has a slightly different history than the us with striped uniforms um they were never as widely used as they were in the u.s still though we can trace back to medieval times and stripes were always considered to be this kind of unnatural pattern one academic theory posits that there was an inaccurate translation that went around from the old testament which originally said uh not to mix two kinds of things like such as uh wool and linen in the same fabric i don't know why i've never had the old testament but this is apparently a thing an inaccurate translation changed the meaning to two colors versus two kinds of things and then in the 13th century pope boniface viii prevented um he actually forbid all clergymen from wearing stripes and around the same time in saxony or modern-day germany laws enforced sex workers and criminals to wear stripes despite their outdatedness prison stripes have been used often as a kitschy comedic device such as in cartoons and in movies like oh brother were art thou for that reason alone i could see why anderson chose striped uniforms the prison uniforms are also very drab and dull in color emphasizing further the struggle that gustav is facing having this in his previous costume be so different demonstrates how great the gap is from where he was to where he is now gustav continues to wear drab colors until he returns to the grand budapest the guards and evil characters also wear gray and dark colors to visually distinguish them as enemies compared to the saturated and light colors worn by the heroes and allies the vibrancy of the color palette is of course very trademark wes anderson but it objectively works in this movie because um the movie mostly takes place as a flashback to a more decadent pre-war time period we also learn later that gustav and agatha pass away not too long after the main events of this movie so it makes sense that zero would hold fonder memories of this time period adding to the brightness and saturation as he's uh recollecting it anyway so this is the end of the video um let me know if you have any differing interpretations or analyses than mine i would love to hear them so yeah i'll catch you later next time

Channel: Mina Le

Views: 195,696

Keywords: wes anderson, costume design, costume analysis, wes anderson costumes, wes anderson color, wes anderson costume design, film analysis, video essay, fashion essay, the royal tenenbaums, moonrise kingdom, the grand budapest hotel, karen patch, Kasia Walicka-Maimone, Milena Canonero, fashion, costumes, suzy bishop, sam shakusky, margot tenenbaum, chaz tenenbaum, richie tenenbaum, royal tenenbaum, zero moustafa, monsieur gustave

Id: FiPaYltM2v0

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2020