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Costumes Fight for Life, Too

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Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson in 'The Hunger Games.' More Photos »

By JACOB BERNSTEIN

Published: April 6, 2012

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In "The Hunger Games," Jennifer Lawrence plays a young woman named Katniss Everdeen who winds up as a contestant on a reality show where the difference between winning and losing is life and death.

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'Hunger Games' Fashion Fails to Impress Some Style Insiders

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Fashion plays a grave role, too.

Early on, a gold-eyeliner-wearing stylist played by Lenny Kravitz stresses the importance of appearance, telling Katniss that he's not there just to make her look pretty, but "unforgettable." Stanley Tucci, who portrays the blue-haired host of the televised games, looks like a cross between Karl Lagerfeld and Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy. And Elizabeth Banks plays Effie Trinket, one of Katniss's handlers, whose pink wigs, pointy shoes and outré outfits made her a style icon with readers of Suzanne Collins's novel, on which the movie is based.

But so far, fashion types have not been overly impressed with the movie, at least as far as the clothing is concerned.

The costumes "looked cheaply made," said Joshua Jordan, a fashion photographer who has done campaigns for Anna Sui and Neiman Marcus. "You wanted it to bring you to an evil Thierry Mugler place, and it didn't. It has nothing on the fashion business."

Olivier Van Doorne , the head of SelectNY, a fashion advertising firm that makes commercials for brands like Emporio Armani and Tommy Hilfiger, agreed. While he liked the film, he said he found the outfits "ridiculous." " 'Blade Runner' gave a vision of the future you'd never seen before," he said. "With this, there's nothing new. It looks like a lot of recycling stuff Jean Paul Gaultier had done before."

Comparisons to "Blade Runner" were brought up repeatedly. Released in 1982, Ridley Scott's adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" took a similarly bleak view of the future, suggesting that technology and government would metastasize into something uncontrollable. With its sheer plastic raincoats, metallic dog collars and '80s power suits with Grace Jones-like shoulder padding, the movie became a reference point for designers the world over.

Judging by reactions from the fashion set, "The Hunger Games" won't have the same stylistic influence. Sally Hershberger , the celebrity hairstylist and frequent collaborator with the photographer Annie Leibovitz, also invoked the 1982 sci-fi epic as the yardstick against which the newer sci-fi film had failed.

As she saw it, the on-screen outfits looked "clownish," like things you would see at a "costume party in Venice." "It's not a 'Blade Runner' moment," Ms. Hershberger said. "This is not a fashion film. It looks too cheap."

Lorenzo Martone , Marc Jacobs's ex-boyfriend and a marketing strategist, said he didn't find anything in "The Hunger Games" particularly groundbreaking. "I think they spent a lot of money but I don't know if it was money well spent," he said. "It just seemed like a tuneup of things we already have today." Basically, he said, "I thought, 'All this effort, and this is what the future looks like?' "

Paul Wilmot , the public relations guru who has worked for designers like Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein, simply called the film's costumes "hideola." (This did not appear to be a compliment.)

Still, some fashion designers had kinder things to say. The film's costume designer, Judianna Makovsky , after all, cited Elsa Schiaparelli and Marie Antoinette as sartorial references, and called in outrageous Gaga-esque Alexander McQueen shoes for the movie.

Lionsgate, the studio behind "The Hunger Games," started a Tumblr feed, Capitol Couture , devoted to the movie's looks, with particular attention paid to those worn by Ms. Banks's character, who bears a striking resemblance to Anna Piaggi, the eccentric Italian fashion maven, with fluorescent headpieces, turquoise eyeliner and fingerless lace gloves.

Alexis Bittar , the jewelry designer, said, "I just saw it and loved it." The costumes, particularly those worn by Ms. Banks and Mr. Tucci, he said, were "tacky" and "over the top," but that seemed intentional.

As he pointed out, in a totalitarian state where the rich commit all sorts of atrocities on the poor (including forcing them to fight for their lives on a show that resembles "American Idol") it would not exactly make sense if you walked away envying the villains for their outfits.

"It would have been too much," he said. "The total contrast worked."

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