Best Costume Design is all about Big Hats
Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 9:00AM 
It's always interesting to find links between otherwise disconnected pictures, whether in the context of a film festival or just the calendar year. Sometimes, the awards season can suggest interesting threads uniting films by virtue of competition-born comparison. Note that one need not be very intellectual about this, and it's always good to have some fun about the race. This year, for example, I couldn't help but notice how three of our likely nomination leaders are bedecked in exuberant millinery, with Killers of the Flower Moon taking the cake as 2023's best hat movie. Or, at the very least, 2023's most hats movie.
And, as we all know, when it comes to the Academy, "most" often trumps "best." Not that Jacqueline West is locked to win Best Costume Design for the Scorsese movie. After all, even in hat terms alone, there's stiff competition from Barbie and Oppenheimer…
I've written about the Oppenheimer costumes before, exploring how Ellen Mirojnick came up with the titular character's iconic silhouette, complete with wide-brimmed hat. In essence, it all comes down to a negotiation between fact and myth, considering the father of the atomic bomb through a prism big enough to encompass Western film aesthetics. In Barbie, Jacqueline Durran also dressed her stars in cowboy style, imagining her two dimensionally displaced dolls in shoplifted couture with a country edge. And the hats don't stop there, with plenty of Chanel numbers for Margot Robbie, 90s Lisa Frank-colored visors and a gingham sun hat with matching romper.
That said, it's worth repeating that no movie out-hats Killers of the Flower Moon. When first seeing the teaser, TFE's endlessly fabulous Nick Taylor immediately clocked Jesse Plemons' cowboy detective as having major "Camryn Manheim in Scary Movie 3" energy. Little did he know that this chapeau of a Texas ranger turned detective is far from the only memorable headpiece in the epic. Though, Plemons' Tom White does earn his ominous pre-introduction as "the man in the hat." In fact, Leonardo DiCaprio sports a beautiful wide-brimmed piece that gains totemic power within the narrative.
It's a courting gift from Mollie to Ernest that becomes a steadfast reminder of their marital bond. It also helps delineate his arc within the Fairfax socioeconomic ecosystem. He starts in a military hat, assigned as part of the mandated uniform, only to work as a driver with a chauffeur flat cap. When Mollie gifts him a Stetson, the object is social ascendancy manifested in molded felt, an invitation for the man to join a new family. Significantly, it also speaks of a unique place for Ernest within his uncle's murderous conspiracy. You see, his hat is in the white man's Cattleman Creased style, but its band is Osage.
Other incredible designs include a range of wide-brimmed round hats shaped in rejection of a settler prerogative. Even dressed in clothes seemingly cut off from their heritage, the native characters never subsume themselves in their oppressor's Frontier fashions. But it's in ritual ceremony that the Osage headwear gets a chance to shine spectacular, be it the metaphorical burial that opens the movie or wedding celebrations. Indeed, that latter scene was skewed away from historical fact to showcase Osage tradition, including the 18th century-style military garb and feathered hats worn by the bride and her sisters.
Curiously, that nuptial custom harkens back to a time before the Osage found oil in Oklahoma when Napoleon sold the Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson's government. The French conqueror may be another figure in this year's Best Costume Design race, bringing a myriad of military millinery, which includes the unforgettable bicorne that's synonymous with the despot. Beyond Janty Yates' Napoleon wardrobe, another upcoming hat movie is Wonka, with costumes by Lindy Hemming. Will the chocolatier's top hat join the race for gold? Will Best Costume Design be all about hats this year? Time will tell.
Please entertain these silly ramblings and answer one simple question: What's your favorite hat of the cinematic year?
Reader Comments (1)
No discussion of headgear in 2023 movies is complete without a tip of the hat to the fifth return of Indiana Jones’s iconic pinch front, brown fedora.