Heroes

My family usually has the television on the night of the Oscars, and we watch in between doing whatever work we're doing that particular evening. I'm kind of the geek of the group though. While most people are waiting for the best actor/actress/picture/director awards, I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement of the costume design award which usually goes to someone only I've heard of. Reason being of course, that I make costumes, so I actually care about the people nominated, whereas the rest of my family is just waiting for it to move on.

While I was personally rooting for Sandy Powell, one of my costume design heroes (she was up for the Tempest), the award actually went to Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland. While I was disappointed that Powell didn't take it, Atwood is still in my top 5 favorite costume designers.

As far as my favorite costume design heroes, my #1 spot is a tie between Sandy Powell who gets a large percentage of the good ones (Rob Roy, Young Victoria, Gangs of New York) and Ngila Dickson who did my all time favorite movie Lord of the Rings, not to mention The Last Samurai, the Illusionist (which I never saw, but the costumes were nice), and was one of the designers for Xena: Warrior Princess.
Then the #2 spot goes Jenny Beavan (Everafter, need I say more?). And at #3 comes tonight's winner Colleen Atwood (She did the costumes for Memoirs of a Geisha, and while I never saw the film, I studied the costumes like there was no tomorrow). So there we are. Four costume designers who greatly inspire me and keep me working hard on my own costumes.

As far as the Academy Awards themselves, I just have one question, how come nobody ever shows up in a gown or a tux they got at the Goodwill?