Think of your favorite film — or films, if you can’t make up your mind about one. Do you remember what the characters wore?
Of course, some outfits are more memorable than others. Darth Vader’s black suit of armor. Dorothy’s bright red, ruby slippers. Indiana Jones’ hat, jacket and whip combination. The Blues Brothers in matching black suits.
All of these are on display (but only for a limited time, until March 2) inside what has been known as LACMA West, perhaps better known as the old May Company building on Wilshire Boulevard.
Think of your favorite film — or films, if you can’t make up your mind about one. Do you remember what the characters wore?
Of course, some outfits are more memorable than others. Darth Vader’s black suit of armor. Dorothy’s bright red, ruby slippers. Indiana Jones’ hat, jacket and whip combination. The Blues Brothers in matching black suits.
All of these are on display (but only for a limited time, until March 2) inside what has been known as LACMA West, perhaps better known as the old May Company building on Wilshire Boulevard.
The Hollywood Costume exhibit is something of a sneak peak at the future of this iconic building. In recent years, this building has struggled to find a purpose as part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
It has been part of LACMA since 1994 (open as museum space since 1998), and since then the sprawling museum campus has added the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. The former took over the museum’s modern art collection, while the latter grabbed most of the special exhibitions.
Under the circumstances, it makes sense that LACMA would ink a deal allowing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take over the building. The Academy hopes to turn the building into an Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in 2017. In fact, they hope to construct a large bubble-like building as part of the new museum, but whether they succeed in that part is less than certain.
Hollywood is still a major center of pop entertainment, especially the movie business, so it makes sense that Los Angeles should have at least one major museum dedicated to the industry.
People are fascinated by movies and movie actors, and the Hollywood Costume exhibit is a good example of that fascination. The exhibit features dozens of outfits from all sorts of films. One could easily go through and just gawk at all of the film outfits that they recognize. Over in one corner is Mary Poppins and they have two different Superman outfits, an Iron Man suit of armor, a Batman suit, etc. They cleverly put a lot of different Meryl Streep outfits together in one section.
It is interesting to see how even films not known for iconic outfits still require costume designers to come up with original and unique costumes to make sure that “Argo” does not look like “American Hustle.”
The exhibit has its flaws. There is an overabundance of costumes, for one thing. The exhibit tries to show how the costuming process works — working together with directors and actors to come up with the right design for the right film. But by the end, those explanations get lost in a sea of movie magic and spectacle — over here is Uma Thurman from “Kill Bill,” over here is Marilyn Monroe in “the Seven Year Itch,” and why is Han Solo in a different section from Darth Vader?
Still, it is an interesting exhibition which celebrates a local classic industry. If the Hollywood Costume exhibit is any indication, the Academy museum should be an instant hit.
James Fujita is a former GVN news editor. He works as a copy editor for the Visalia Times-Delta in California’s Central Valley. Fujita can be contacted at jim61773@yahoo.com
