The Costume Analysis of The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge

Costumes in two movies The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge are designed by Catherine Martin, who has won the Oscar Best Costume. She thinks it is a deliberate choice to make the images and the characters more accessible to an audience. (Austen, 1) Costumes in these two movies are different to demonstrate different characters and connotations.

Costumes in The Great Gatsby

The1920s is the jazz era of sensual pleasures. The American dream makes people be filled with passion and desires. The Great Gatsby demonstrates the bust of the American dream. Catherine Martin has used a large number of gorgeous vintage and fashion costumes which make audiences feel dazzling. In the 1920s, men's clothing is generally gloomier, and the three-piece suit is the most common costume in the upper-class. The beige clothing reflects a kind of educated and prosperous life. Clothing accessories such as pocket towel, pocket watch, buttonhole perfectly fit the integrity of the whole design. The protagonist Gatsby fully reflects the 1920s style of dress in the upper class, and his three-piece suits are very common in the play. The black dress and light-colored dress are Gatsby’s most important styles.

In the film, the most striking costume is women’s clothing. Daisy’s costumes can be described as the focus of the film. Daisy’s first appearance has shown the exquisite costumes, the tassel skirt decorated with lace is a perfect combination. The solid color and a light gray could demonstrate Daisy’s nobleness and elegance. The overall design is exquisite and elegant. In the 1920s, women's clothing tends to be low-waist design. Lace, beaded jewelry and hair band are the popular detail elements which could be found everywhere in the movie. In the two major parties, women dress gorgeously and kindly. The stylish short hair coupled with fine hair bands and jewelry has shown the gorgeous and extravagant scene in the Jazz era.

Clothing is called as the extension of the body. Through the visual arts, costumes could impress the audiences and make them understand the characters. Catherine Martin creates the costumes based on the screenplay and the story and the characters portrayed, so these costumes could show characters’ personality, status, occupation, emotions, and fate. Daisy’s costumes are elegant and gorgeous, but she is a character with delicate appearance and an empty soul. When she sees Gatsby’s failure and she abandons the love. Her betrayal suddenly destroys her original beautiful image. In the film, Nick as a witness, he has always maintained a calm and rational analysis and judgment. So his clothes are mostly tan lines to demonstrate the calmness. The supporting actress, the mistress Myrtle’s clothing is not gorgeous and graceful. On the contrary, her costumes are quite dazzling with different bright colors. These contrary costume designs could easily make audiences differentiate the social status and professions in the movie.

Costumes in Moulin Rouge

The movie Moulin Rouge gives audiences the most intuitive and impressive feeling is strong and flirtatious colors. Moulin Rouge has won the 74th Oscar for Best Costume Design award and the designer Catherine Martin has fully understood and expressed the luxury and extravagant lifestyle in Paris. The story takes place in the Moulin Rouge, which is a romantic place under the background of the hedonism. Therefore, Catherine Martin designs all the costumes with bright colors and makes sure all characters have the strong makeup to highlight the characters’ luxury and corrupted living conditions in the story and lay the overall color tone for the development of the story. From fashion design, the story takes place in Paris at the first 20^th century. Catherine Martin designs the actors and actresses’ dresses with regional characteristics and obvious characteristics of the times and the European cultural background. In terms of colors, it is clear prostitutes’ costumes are mainly red colors which are very sexy and bright to show prostitutes’ coquettish images. In addition, prostitutes’ costumes have disclosed their bodies for several times to leave audiences with strong visual impacts. The image of debauchery prostitute identity has been described vividly. The bright colors in the movie Moulin Rouge make the whole movie quite impressive. The stylish and gorgeous skirts are a major highlight of the film. The film not only pays much attention to the clothing but also cares much about the accessories. Its exquisite extent could be comparable with Titanic. The famous diamond in Moulin Rouge is quite impressive and luxury worth 1 million dollars which have fully demonstrated the material life at that time. At the same time, the shoes and costumes could show a sense of Chinese culture which shows some vintage and exotic fashion. All these details have added attractiveness for the whole movie.

In terms of actors and actresses’ makeup, audiences could have the impressions that these people are “artists” who advocate the hedonism. The prostitutes and the Moulin Rouge Moulin Rouge boss are a group of hedonistic characters, and they are all very crazy people at that time. In order to cater to their characters, Catherine Martin designs their costumes and makeup very strange. The most outstanding makeup for the Moulin Rouge owner is his face blush like a drunken man. The glamorous life makes him get drunk and highlights his living style of indulging in dissipation. A group of prostitutes in Moulin Rouge have different images, but their makeup generally is characterized by “black eyes and white face”. Due to their professions, the strong and glamorous makeup aptly reflects their occupational characteristics.