Undressing ‘Inception’

Happy anniversary, Cobb! Today makes it exactly one month since “Inception” first hit theaters — I bring this up not to make any point, but as an excuse to those readers who cry foul over each new post about the film. May I continue?

Anyway, while most discussion on the film is largely played out, I did want to draw attention to this interesting interview with the film’s costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, on the excellent, self-explanatory website Clothes on Film. (To be fair, the piece appeared over a fortnight ago — I’m the one behind the beat here.)

As Gerard noted in his Tech Support column, costume design is the least likely technical area (Best Original Song excepted, of course) for the film to receive Oscar notice — though it’s probably a shoo-in for a nod in the Guild’s contemporary category. Still, Kurland’s stylish, subtly defined threads remain, for me, one of the film’s most intelligent visual cues. They’re easy to write off as a bunch of sharp suits and shimmery gowns until one notices the considered differences in tailoring that distinguish the male characters in particular: Cobb’s cautious American classics versus Arthur’s fussier three-pieces, or Eames’s rumpled, anachronistic linen verus Fischer’s severe corporate uniform.

This is par for the course for Kurland, whose one Oscar nod inevitably came for a period piece (“Bullet Over Broadway,” at the tail-end of a lengthy Woody Allen partnership) but really deserves recognition as one of Hollywood’s smartest contemporary costumers, having previously been an asset to such thoughtfully dressed films as “Erin Brockovich,” “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Collateral” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

Okay, so I’m a bit of a costume nut. Even if you aren’t, however, the interview should be of interest to the film’s fans, not least when Kurland casually shoots down one widely floated theory about the film’s ending by confirming that the clothing worn by Cobb’s children in the final scene is different from that worn earlier. (Nice try, guys.)

On the clothes themselves, meanwhile, Kurland explains how he blurred contemporary, period and ethnic fashions to keep the film’s futurism malleable:

Not wanting to date the film, I was trying to create an upscale world of business and intrigue with architecture being a constant metaphorical thread running throughout… definitely forward thinking, without being futuristic. That enabled me to travel from reality to dreams and back, keeping a certain amount of stylization that would serve all the situations presented in the script.

I did research traditional Japanese dress thoroughly, knowing that I wanted that influence in Saito’s first costume. The scene being in a mysterious and unidentifiable place was the perfect setting to introduce a highlighted reality. Being a powerful Japanese businessman in what was eventually revealed to be a dream; I wanted to show an adherence to and a respect for the old, but still showcasing him as contemporary and cutting edge.

For those inclined to geek out, there’s plenty more here, as well as on the rest of the site, a hodgepodge of sartorial musings on films old, new and forthcoming. My favorite: this playful but perceptive mini-essay on the manbag carried by Paddy Considine in “The Bourne Ultimatum.”

[Photo: Clothes on Film]