Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell becomes CBE
The British costume designer was previously made an OBE for her prolific work in film.
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Your support makes all the difference.Costume designer Sandy Powell has become a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Powell, 64, is one of the most celebrated designers in the film industry with three Academy Awards and three Baftas to her name.
She is mentioned in the New Year Honours list for her service to costume design.
Powell cemented her star status in the film industry when she became the first costume designer to receive the Bafta Fellowship in 2023 – the highest recognition given in the UK for exceptional contributions to the film industry.
Other recipients have included Martin Scorsese and Dame Helen Mirren.
From her sumptuous realist looks for Shakespeare In Love to reviving Mary Poppins in 2019 in the film Mary Poppins Returns, Powell has worked with modern cinema’s greatest talents.
Having dressed actors from Leonardo DiCaprio to Dame Judie Dench, Powell has helped directors such as Scorsese and Todd Haynes bring their cinematic visions to life.
“80% of the job is psychology and only 20% art, you have to figure out how to make people feel safe, because dressing them is a very intimate act,” Powell told the Financial Review in 2023. “They have to feel that in your hands they will find their character.”
Powell grew up in Brixton and Clapham in south London.
Holding no relation to the late costume designer Anthony Powell, Powell was taught to sew by her mother, while her father entertained her with tales of the characters from the casino where he worked.
When she was 19, Powell began a BA in Theatre Design at London’s Central School of Art and Design, before dropping out in 1981 to design costumes for the stage.
She quickly shifted her focus to film, and in 1984 met the British filmmaker Derek Jarman, who gave Powell her first opportunity in the industry: designing costumes for his 1986 biopic Caravaggio.
It was through Jarman that Powell met actress Tilda Swinton. While working with Swinton on the period fantasy film Orlando, Powell received her first Academy Award nomination in 1994, thereby cementing her status in the field of costume design.
After Orlando, Powell’s career went from strength to strength, designing costumes for films such as Gangs Of New York, The Aviator and The Young Victoria – the latter two winning her Oscars for best costume design.
In recent times, Powell has become known for her opulent yet elegant looks, designing notable costumes for The Favourite with Olivia Colman and Emma Stone and The Irishman with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
Her work with Scorsese has helped create some of the most enigmatic characters in the director’s oeuvre, including DiCaprio’s depiction of fraudulent trader Jordan Belfort in The Wolf Of Wall Street and Jack Nicholson’s mob boss Frank Costello in The Departed.
Powell and Scorsese’s thorough attention to detail and love of interpretation has resulted in some of cinema’s most memorable characters.
According to Powell, Scorsese’s personal interest in clothes often underscores his creative projects, telling W magazine that the director became “obsessed with ties” while filming 2013’s The Wolf Of Wall Street.
Many pin Powell’s success to her ability to imbue costumes with emotional accuracy.
“The clothes are always made for characters,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “The job is not making actors look nice in clothes. It’s about making actors believable as their characters, about making the story work.”
She most recently worked on Oliver Hermanus’ Living, starring Bill Nighy, and Marc Webb’s Snow White – which is set to be released next year.