Cruella's best looks: A "complete" ranking
Saturday, June 5, 2021 at 12:21PM 
If there were any doubts that Jenny Beavan is a costume design goddess, Disney's latest live-action remake/villain origin story proves it beyond any reasonable doubt. Unencumbered by the financial restraints inherent to independent cinema, Beavan serves up an orgiastic ecstasy of excess and punk rock fashion pastiche. According to interviews, she conceived 47 different costumes for Emma Stone's redeemed villainess, making Cruella the most-dressed movie of the year. It's also a good contender for the title of best-dressed. It's fair to say that an Oscar nomination is all but guaranteed. However, since the 94th Academy Awards are still nearly ten months away, let's focus on other matters.
Specifically, let's delve deep into the matter of Emma Stone's outlandish outfits and decide which are her grandest, most devilishly glamorous looks…
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First things first, one must establish criteria of choice, selection parameters and make some honorable mentions. In other words, I apologize for all the looks I left out. Cruella is a movie bursting at the seams with costuming glory. Emma Stone alone wears dozens upon dozens of different outfits only glimpsed in one or two shots as Estella. With that in mind, I decided to rank only her rebellious alter-ego's costumes, of which there are ten. I further excised the costumes she wears during her last big heist montage. Expect plenty of SPOILERS(!) in this write-up. Speaking of spoilers, isn’t that chrysalid-covered gown Estella designs the most beautiful thing you ever did see? It’s a pity nobody gets to wear it.
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Finally, while I'm only looking at Cruella's costumes, Estella's professional and youthful criminal wardrobe deserves a shout-out. Her rich girl masquerade is amusing for how cartoonish it becomes and such charming details as a Louis Vuitton bag.
With all that out of the way, let's rank the costumes of Cruella, beginning with the classic villain's least exciting look:
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10. FUNERAL BLACK
Since this costume barely gets any screen time and the scene is mostly exposition, I understand why Beavan didn't go all out in its conception. My biggest complaint is that the bottom half looks unresolved. The top, however, reminds me of a rock 'n' roll twist on the classic morning coat, mixing what appear to be a vinyl bodice and wool suit sleeves. Like a lot of Cruella's looks, there's a Frankenstein-esque appeal to its reconstructed glamour.
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09. VICTORY!
Speaking of costumes that look like different outfits sutured together by a mad scientist, this asymmetrical ensemble combines the sharp lines of a top-stitched black with the silky softness of a white blouse-like shirt. Overall, the look's a bit forgettable, but it gets the job done. By mimicking Cruella's hairdo, it's an excellent choice to wear for when you've just finalized your master plan and want to announce the triumph to the world. Everything about it is very much on-brand for Disney's latest villain turned anti-heroine.
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08. PUPPY COAT
The original Cruella never got to wear a Dalmatian-spotted coat, but this new iteration does. Of course, instead of real fur, she's wearing hand-painted textiles magicked into the shape of a tremendous hooded coat with industrial-looking belt closures. What most entices me about the piece is its impeccable tailoring, the swoop of the skirts, details that make it worthy of being a runway show's statement piece. Still, after all the other extravagant costumes Cruella has worn at this point in the movie, I expected something a bit more opulent for her big spotlight-stealing gambit during the night when her enemy was supposed to present a new collection. Bonus points for how the coat seems reversible, as Stone later appears wearing it with the hood up and the black lining on the outside. This is an intelligent callback to what little Cruella did in the prologue, hiding personalized scribblings in the lining of her school uniform.
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07. THE FUTURE
The more I look at this ensemble, the more I like it. That being said, I'm not sure this works particularly well as a costume for the screen. Perchance Beavan was dialing things down to make the in-your-face statement of the makeup take center stage. In any case, this look is an ensemble that lives on its intricate textures and details. With its squared-off shoulders, the jacket looks like it was made out of cut-up tires, while the motorcycle trousers are a riotous sight of sequined leather. It goes by so quickly during the movie that the finer details are easy to miss, but the construction is awe-inspiring.
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06. MACHIAVELLI CHIC
What's more appropriate for a sequence where our protagonist sets the pieces for her strategy than a black-on-black checkered pattern? In this two-piece skirt suit, Cruella looks powerful and chic. She also looks like a chessboard with a love for glam rock stylings. I'm not a fan of the half-gloves with a ruffle on top, but that aristocratic walking cane more than makes up for it. More than the flaming red dress, this is the point when Estella truly becomes Cruella.
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05. A DRESS FIT FOR VENGEANCE
Part of Cruella's last desperate move to avenge her fallen mother involves a ballroom full of lookalikes. Both for Beavan and Cruella's assembled team of seamstresses, these multiplied outfits need to be simple enough for mass production. That explains its simplicity and why it's one of Emma Stone's more traditionally glamorous ensembles. The base is a V-neck dress with a slinky fit and a generous train, the most 70s-looking outfit in Cruella's vast wardrobe. The piece-de-resistance, however, is a smart little capelet whose design is a genius fusion of soft and hard elements. The shoulders are made to be pointy, and the back is closed with a silvery chain, the collar points outlined by a white-lining. To offset such angular spikiness, the entire thing is arranged in a flower-like manner. The collar, in particular, looks almost like rose petals. This motif is repeated in the hem of the skirt, which mimics those flowery points, further suggesting a devil's bifurcated tail. It's a pity so much of the costume's details are lost in the chaos of the ball. It's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and subdued glamour.
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04. JEZEBEL RED
From Cruella's subtler outfit, we transition to her most attention-seeking model. Putatively remade from one of the Baroness' old creations, the red frock with white inserts on the skirt was inspired by Charles James' tree dress. Beavan commented she added a shawl to the original Baroness design to make it more plausible that Cruella might have made her gown out of it, but realism is not essential. What matters is spectacle, and this outfit has that in spades. It looks smashing from every angle, a must for a costume that's the centerpiece of a heist gone wrong. Finally, I can't help but love the statement made by wearing red to a black-and-white ball. It brings memories of Capote's famous soirées, Norma Shearer's deliberate fashion faux-pas, and, of course, the ball scene in Jezebel.
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03. THE MISTRESS OF HELL HALL
This costume worn by Cruella for her final scene is the one that best translates her past self Estella's style into her new persona's extravagant provocation. The smart Savile Row-esque tailoring is present, as is the appropriation of aspects of male suiting. The finished product is a caped delight, in which the geometrical appliqués that adorned her previous capelet are now turned into a choker. The contrast between her glossy leather gloves and the rich wool is ambrosia to my eyes, and I further adore the bat-like quality the outfit gives Cruella in wide shots.
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02. FASHION WARRIOR
While Jenny Beavan experimented with vintage pieces to find Cruella's aesthetic, most of those garments were discarded in favor of made-from-scratch costumes. According to what the designer said in interviews, one of the few pieces that survived this process was the militaristic jacket Cruella wears during the fashion guerrilla montage. Covering the piece in trinkets, including miniature toy horses on the epaulets, Beavan evokes the spirit of Alexander McQueen, whose designs often looked back to the heyday of 70s punk fashions. What elevates this costume above so many others is the utter opulence of it all as well as the ever-present mixture of soft-hard elements; masculinity and femininity fight it out in one outfit. The bellicose quality of the jacket contrasts with a gigantic skirt made of over 5000 silk petals arranged in an ombré that goes from blood red to pinkish wine and black. To top it all off, there's a polished pair of Dock Martens and a graffitied sash that proudly declares the Baroness as a thing of the past.
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01. GARBAGE COUTURE
Nothing tops this trashy eleganza extravaganza, complete with a reveal and glittery drag makeup. As a garbage truck crashes one of the Baroness' photo ops, out comes tumbling down what looks like the discarded fabric scraps of an abandoned collection. Could these be the outfits the older designer so furiously trashed in favor of newer bolder pieces? Whatever the case, it doesn't matter. From the pile of fabric emerges Cruella, as covered in silky trash as in newspaper articles announcing her as the future of fashion. It's a "fuck you" in the form of haute couture, torn glamour refitted and reconfigured as a giant train that blows in the wind as Cruella departs in the truck, cackling through the streets of London. One of Beavan's most significant influences when devising Cruella's look was the legacy of Vivienne Westwood, and this is the best and most explicit homage. The corset upon which the costume is assembled looks like it's straight out of a Westwood collection, with a bit of Disney magic lightly dusted atop it all. It's a besotting sight.
What about you, dear reader? What's your favorite costume from Cruella's vast wardrobe?
Reader Comments (13)
Your taste is as impeccable as hers!
Kael, Ebert, Alves
Can we get one of these on the Baroness next? This is great.
Your number one is my number one. Just perfection. Marie Antoinettte of Recycling.
Just give Jenny Beaven the Oscar. These are costumes. The garbage dress, genius! That is art!
If this wins the costume Oscar (a nomination seems a sure thing) will this be the most modern period piece? Has any film taking place post 1950's ever won?
I can't lie, I straight-up gasped in the theatre once the full genius of the garbage dress was revealed. The second gasp came with the moths reveal.
Tom G -- Yes, it will. Currently, that record is held by PHANTOM THREAD (1950s). Coincidentally, it's another flick about the London fashion scene.
Though, that only applies to period pieces. THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, a contemporary narrative upon its release, won in 1994.
Insufficient amount of fur for Cruella. Glenn Close was closer there in her films. Maybe fur can’t be worn in films anymore even by villains (it didn’t need to be real fur out of universe, but real in it). Her cigarette with sucky green smoke is also missing. The outfits look good otherwise.
Love this post and your ranking is excellent. That said, I admit to lovely the Puppy Coat a lot mostly due to the wink to the iconic character AND to the in-story wink Cruella is giving the Baroness. And to learn it's reversible from this post just makes it all the more awesome (I just assumed she had a black jacket).
I second the request for a similar post on the Baroness!
Which season of Drag Race is this?
Every time Emma Stone appeared on the screen in one of these fascinating dresses, I couldn't help but exclaim a resounding WOW. What great genius and versatility Jenny Beavan manifests with the design of this wardrobe. If there is divine justice in the next Oscars, the award for best costume design already has an owner. Nothing to object. I also believe that the position taken by the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) and the AMPAS branch on the exploitation that Disney is doing of Beavan's designs without their consent only reinforces their position of favorite in the category.
Postscript: As soon as the movie ended, I bolted to check out the costumes of 101 Dalmatians, 102 Dalmatians, and Velvet Goldmine.
I absolutely loved this film. Everything about it is good, and the costumes were stunning. Great ranking.
Haven't seen this yet, but this seems a very solid bet for the Oscar yeah? Good on Jenny Beavan. What an eclectic selection of movies to have won Oscars for -- A Room with a View, Mad Max: Fury Road... Cruella probably. Not even Sandy Powell's three are that discrete.