WRITTEN BY: JENNIFER STRIEGEL | PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF Searchlight Pictures, 2022

Costume. Garments that adorn someone to signal a specific style when in their wearing to encapsulate its environment. Children and adults alike choose a costume to dress up for certain celebrations throughout the year. Artists, whose craft includes performing, wear costumes that are part of the choreography of their dance, music or theater performance. 

Designer. A person who is the developer of products. In fashion, designers are responsible for visioning a style, creating plans to execute that style. Fashion designers create an individual style or a collection of styles, depending upon their vision for the person purchasing their designs alongside the broader public’s acceptance of their designs. 

Costume Designer. Milena Canonero. An exceptional developer of garments for artists’ roles to come to life on film… in theaters and in the comforts of our homes globally. Her aesthetic over four plus decades has not been defined by a particular style, rather a consistent standard of excellence across every style she creates. That’s why, in each film, the garments from Milena are a key contributing factor to how our brains remember these films with a vivid memorability and universality. Making all of the 51 films Milena has dressed as iconic as they are. 

Milena, who turned 76 January 1st this year, was born in Turin, Italy. In her young adulthood, Milena studied art history and costume design, which in hindsight explains perfectly her incredible ability to equally combine the set of a film or stage with the people occupying it. Every detail chosen in her costume designs for the characters reflect each storyline. Her inspiration derived not just from the scripts, also her in-depth art history knowledge. 

Milena’s foundation in how to study each artwork results in every engagement being inspirational for her. For example, a different form of art, baking. A well known story of her introductory meeting with Sofia Coppola for Marie Antoinette illuminates Milena’s innate ability to transcend all artistry to her costume designs. “The beautiful colors… they (the macarons) became a guideline.”  Sofia had gifted Milena a box of macarons from Ladurée at the start of their work together. Ladurée introduced the macaroon as a sweet staple in Paris, France in 1862. Since then, both the sweet and the company name’s have been recognized and enjoyed globally for nearly two centuries. It’s no surprise that Sofia felt it perfectly appropriate to share this type of both one-of-a-kind and universally recognized making of edible art with Milena. 

Assimilating product placement is yet another genius of Milena’s eye in understanding what to see in art to incorporate into her costume designs. Milena’s partnership with Wes Anderson over various films of his, most recently The French Dispatch, introduces Prada as a prominent yet seamless part of the characters’ out-fittings. 

Together with Prade, art in food for Milena continued. Pasticceria Marchesi, owned by Prada, is a Milan hotspot due to its real-life replica of Wes Anderson’s Bakery Mendl’s in The Grand Budapest Hotel, incorporating colorways from the film’s cast in which Milena designed.

Tune into the 94th Oscars nomination announcement on February 8th. The category – Best Costume Design Productions – predicts Melina of The French Dispatch’s ensemble cast Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson, all the beneficiaries of Melina Canonero’s multidisciplinary artistry.