This is coming from someone who, despite being a great fan of musical theatre, has never actually been to see a West End production! I wasn't particularly familiar with the story, having not read the book either. I was familiar somewhat with the soundtrack - musical theatre soundtracks, another thing I just love - and the Les Mis soundtrack is brilliant. The way all the songs have a kind of connection, whether that's through the lyrics or the melody, which some people may find a bit annoying, not being able to tell songs apart, but when done well, it just works. And also how they were recorded live on set, allowing the actors the freedom to really act the songs, play with the tempo, it just gave it that extra something.
Now, costumes. Hehe.
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Costume designer, Paco Delgado
I found this link here that includes an interview with the costume designer Paco Delgado, which I will take a few snippets from that I found of great interest...
Costume designer Paco Delgado first met director Tom Hooper in Spain, and got along so well that a few months later he was invited to meet Hooper in London to discuss his next project - Les Miserables.
From the overall colour scheme to the revolutionary rosettes, nothing in Les Mis is an accident. For instance, the use of red, blue and white - the colours of the french flag - was a cue taken from period artworks.
Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix
“You have for example Delacroix’s Freedom Guiding the People for the barricade and you see people blocked in solid blue, with red and with white. That was a decision — Tom wanted to go that way, and use these three colours in a very patriotic way. But then with Marius and Cosette, it was more natural, a question of a romantic story going on."
“When you start designing a movie, especially in a case like this one where you have so many characters you have to have a sort of leitmotif running for character,”
Jean Valjean -“It is very monastic, his life. And once, in Morocco, I saw shepherds in the Atlas mountains wearing these long coats made with very, very coarse wool from the sheep that they had."
Fantine - “One of the first things that Tom said to me is that he wanted that factory to look in fact a little bit like a nunnery. Like a convent of girls, where purity was there. Obviously blue is a colour associated with purity, and also associated with nuns and the Virgin Mary.”
Éponine - “I love see-through materials, always. I think they bring a fragility and you always can play with light with them. And also you always can play with different layers. And I love that."
Javert - “...we started with a bright blue. We then start darkening his costume because we thought his character was getting more deeply sorrowful, more sombre, more complex, in a way — obsessed with trying to catch a man who was almost uncatchable."
Cosette - “We always thought of Cosette like a flower — the reason we used peaches and lilacs and all the colours you could see in a garden. She started as a girl dressed in black because she was living in a convent and had this sort of saint kind of look, a proper girl at a convent school.”
I found the following really interesting, it's something you don't really think about when watching the film, but if the sound is recorded live then fabric becomes a consideration. It seems they were lucky with the time it's set...“We had to be very careful with the sound of the fabrics. We couldn’t use any taffeta at all because it makes so much noise. But by fortune, that wasn’t a period of taffeta. You have it at the end of the 18th century and then later on in the 19th century but in the period of the film, silk was something of the Ancien Régime, used at Versailles, and there was a big backlash and rejection of those expensive fabrics at the time. They had also discovered a new fabric from India: cotton. Chintz and cotton and muslin, it’s an amazing period for that. So you have a moment in history when cotton was considered much more beautiful than silk. We were very lucky about that!”
So yes, do have a quick look as they also have a few pictures and more information and such.
There's also a short costume design featurette on youtube, along with a hair and makeup one.
The story starts in 1815 and progresses through to 1832 (though I think the final scene in the film is in 1848), and fashions changed quite a bit in that period. By the 1800s, here in England we were still in the regency era, think Jane Austen, though fashions were becoming a little more fancy. Waistlines get lower as we got through the early 1800s (waistlines were up and down constantly throughout the 18th and 19th centuries), until they are right at the waist, as upposed to right under the bust, though the lower classes kept this high waist until about 1830.
Here is an example comparing female fashions in 1815 to 1830.
Waistlines changed, necklines changed, sleeves and skirts got bigger. Bodices became a 'V' shape and women started wearing corsets for a slim waist. You can see the Victorian look come into play as it's only a couple of years before Queen Victoria comes to the throne (1837).
Amanda Seyfried as Cosette
In France, it was pretty much the same story. Here's a good website that explores the fashions from about 1800-1825, and includes both France and England.
Men's fashions, I know a bit less about, but the most distinctive look in the film would be this sort of thing...
Eddie Redmayne as Marius
The Byron collar, a stiffened cravat and a waistcoat, or vest (single or double breasted), was a gentlemen's choice of attire in the 1820s - 1830s. Along with breeches, high waisted trousers and a choice of shoes or boots.
Fashions through the 1800s all used to merge into one for me, but the more I look, the more I notice how distinctive they are to their decade.
Hope you've found this interesting, I just love the progression of fashions and how they came about. Especially when it's included in awesome film adaptations of musical productions...
