Photography by Brigitte Lacombe
With 14 days until Oscar we're thinking about Queen Sandy Powell, now with a towering 14 nominations for costume design via her double nod this year for Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite. We interviewed her in the year of Carol and Cinderella (2015), also a double nominated year. The only time she's ever won while double nominated was the first time...
When her work on Shakespeare in Love (1998) beat her still jawdropping work in Velvet Goldmine . Oscar is such a sucker for the Elizabethan era.
Her 14 nominations chronologically
- Orlando (1992)
- The Wings of the Dove (1997)
- Velvet Goldmine (1998)
- Shakespeare in Love (1998) ★
- Gangs of New York (2002)
- The Aviator (2004) ★
- Mrs Henderson Presents (2005)
- The Young Victoria (2009) ★
- The Tempest (2010)
- Hugo (2011)
- Cinderella (2015)
- Carol (2015)
- The Favourite (2018)
- Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
Her 14 best, ranked
- Velvet Goldmine (1998)
- Far From Heaven (2002) - not Oscar nominated
- Orlando (1992)
- The Aviator (2004)
- Carol (2015)
- The Favourite (2018)
- The Wings of the Dove (1997)
- Cinderella (2015)
- Shakespeare in Love (1998)
- Interview with the Vampire (1994) - not Oscar nominated
- Gangs of New York (2002)
- Rob Roy (1995) - not Oscar nominated
- Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
- The End of the Affair (1999) - not Oscar nominated
Oscar's 14 All Time Favourite Costume Designers
Arrows indicate that they're still alive and working. Unless otherwise noted.
Oscar's most beloved costume designer Edith Head
- Edith Head (35 nominations / 8 wins)
- Charles Le Maire (16/3)
- Irene Sharaff (15/5)
- 🔺Sandy Powell (14/3) Nominated twice this year, 58 years old
- Jean Louis (14/1)
- 🔺Colleen Atwood (12/4)
Most recent nom/win Fantastic Beasts, 70 years old - Dorothy Jeakins (12/3)
- 🔺Jenny Beavan (10/2)
Most recent nom/win Mad Max Fury Road, 68 years old - [tied for 8th] Helen Rose (10/2)
- Walter Plunkett (10/1)
- [tied for 10th] Bill Thomas (10/1)
- 🔺Milena Canonero (9/4)
Most recent nom/win Grand Budapest Hotel, 73 years old. Next up for Canonero: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch - 🔺Albert Wolsky (7/2)
Most recent nom Revolutionary Road, 88 years old. Next up for Wolsky: sci-fi drama Ad Astra with Brad Pitt and the thriller The Woman in the Window with Amy Adams, both coming out this year. - 🔺Anthony Powell (6/3)
Most recent nom 102 Dalmatians, - 83 years old. Retired since 2006, though, so he won't be moving up the chart unless someone woos him out of retirement.
Powell, Atwood, Beavan, and Canonero's records are particularly impressive when you realize that their deceased counterparts in Oscar glory had the advantage of two costume design categories (the category was created in 1948 and originally was two separate competitions whether the film was in black and white or in color. There were two chances to win and two to be nominated in until 1967 when we reached our now familiar 5 nominees only in costume design, no matter the kind of movie)
Patricia Norris with her lifetime achievement from the Costume Guild in 2007
Who is the Peter O'Toole / Deborah Kerr of this category?
The record for most nominations without a competitive win is Patricia Norris with 6. She died three years ago after a lengthy career that stretched from Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) through 12 Years a Slave (2013) for which we interviewed her. Just behind her was the Italian designer Piero Tosi with 5 nominations (who is still alive) but they gave him an Honorary four years ago.
The currently living/working designer with the most nominations without ever winning we think it's a multiple tie between several people with three-nominations including Ruth E Carter (Black Panther) and Mary Zophres (Ballad of Buster Scruggs) who are both in the mix this year.
SO BACK TO THE CURRENT COMPETITION
If you haven't yet voted on the Costume Design Oscar poll, please do that! Sandy Powell has tough very worthy Oscar competition from Ruth E Carter for Black Panther. Powell x 2 and Carter are the only Oscar transfers in our own film bitch awards in that category
The great Ruth E Carter
Next up for Ruth E Carter: The Netflix biopic Dolemite is My Name from Craig Brewer (Black Snake Moan, Hustle & Flow) starring Eddie Murphy as an actor in the 1970s who assumed an iconic pimp role named "Dolemite"
Next up for Sandy Powell: Martin Scorsese's Netflix historical epic The Irishman (2019), currently in post-production. Her project after that, currently filming, the biopic The Glorias: Life on the Road (2020) in which Lulu Wilson (age 13), Alicia Vikander (age 30) and Julianne Moore (age 58) will all play feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Which means her schedule frees up soon. What wonders await us next?