The Girl You Don't See: Julie Harris and the Costume Designer in British Cinema

Williams, Melanie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3609-207X (2016) The Girl You Don't See: Julie Harris and the Costume Designer in British Cinema. Feminist Media Histories, 2 (2). pp. 71-106. ISSN 2373-7492

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Abstract

Drawing on new and established approaches to film costume, this article examines the creative work of the costume designer, contextualizing it as a gendered profession. It takes the career of the British film costume designer Julie Harris as its illustrative case study, tracing her working practice and sense of creative agency through interviews and press coverage as well as the BFI's extensive collection of her annotated costume sketches. Special emphasis is placed on Harris's negotiation of changing modes of postwar British film production, and her management of the professional tensions between costuming in the service of narrative or costuming as spectacle—in Stella Bruzzi's words, the dilemma of whether to look at or through the clothes on-screen. It culminates in a detailed analysis of Harris's Oscar-winning costume work for Darling (1965) and her ambivalence toward the youth-oriented off-the-rack fashions of the 1960s. In conclusion, it emphasizes the significance and complexity of the costume designer's creative labor, and the need for that work to be granted greater visibility.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > British Cinema & Television
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2023 16:30
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 17:07
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/90758
DOI:	10.1525/fmh.2016.2.2.71

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