Five centuries of fashion in films is on display this holiday weekend in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area.
The exhibit called, “Cut! Costume and the Cinema,” features nearly four-dozen period costumes worn by a host of Hollywood greats.
Nancy Lawson is curator for the exhibit at the Durham Museum in Omaha, which takes an in-depth look at the art of making costumes that set the scene and establish authenticity in period films.
“There are 43 costumes,” Lawson says. “These costumes are from Oscar-winning films and if they didn’t win, they were certainly nominated.”
Lawson says the costumes were worn by top-billing actors in movies including, “The Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Casanova” and “Sherlock Homes.”
“Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Junior, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansen, the list goes on and on,” she says.
Curators at the museum have to be very careful in transporting these costumes from exhibit to exhibit as some are extremely fragile, Lawson says. One dress is almost 80 years old.
She says, “Vanessa Redgrave’s beautiful beaded dress she wore in ‘Mrs. Dalloway,’ it’s actually a real dress from the 1930’s and it is very, very delicate.”
The exhibit will be open through the end of April. Learn more at: durhammuseum.org