And the Oscar goes to...

This week I was lucky enough to go to the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibition at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising ( FIDM ). FIDM is located at 9th and Grand in LA just a few tempting blocks from the fabric district :) But I was here to see costumes from many Oscar nominated movies including True Grit, The Kings Speech, Wall Street; Money Never Sleeps, Inception, The Kids are All Right, and lots of not nominated movies that had much more interesting costumes:)

In all there were 19 movies represented with just a few costumes from each. The exhibit was well laid out and I was enjoying taking photos until I saw the sign ' No Photos'. After that I had to be sneaky and the guard started dogging me! He also told me I couldn't have my bottle of water.

If you have the opportunity to go to this exhibit I highly recommend it. It continues April 30th, the hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10am until 4pm, and it's FREE!!

Furtive Photos

The costumes with the giant girl hovering over them are from Alice in Wonderland, which I can't believe I haven't seen yet! I'm certain there were amazing costumes in this fantasy but, the ones displayed were just good.

The costumes from Burlesque were actually quite creative with lots of clever details like the outline of gloved hands on a booty and contrasting knee-high fishnets over fishnet stockings. Between Cher and Christina Aguilera, something tells me the costumes were probably the best thing about the movie and I'll probably never watch it.

The exhibit was an entirely enjoyable experience to see close-up the workmanship in all the costumes. My favorite designer, Sandy Powell, had costumes from three different movies displayed with my favorite being The Tempest. I never even saw the film advertised but, what Ms. Powell did with zippers on the costumes was fantastic! I'm going to see the movie just to see all the costumes.

Overall I was a little disappointed because so many of the costumes were period costumes based in reality. I think designers make the biggest impact with fantasy costumes because money is no limit, just their imaginations.

And now for the Important Stuff

While viewing the costumes I realised there was a $5 coupon in the program for the FIDM Scholarship store ( on the corner of 9th & Grand ). After perusing the Museum gift shop, which was wonderful with great original jewelry, I convinced my friend to go quickly to the Scholarship store before lunch. As I have posted previously the fabric at the Scholarship store is $1 a yard but, you never know what you'll find. This time there was lots of upholstery fabric and spanex fabric, neither of which interested me. I rummaged around determined not to leave empty-handed and found some wild zebra print fabric. Imagine my surprise at the cash register when I said I probably couldn't use my $5 coupon since my purchase was only a couple bucks. They said sure you could and gave me my fabric for free!! I love that Scholarship store. One last thing- I finally found a good place to eat. It's called Bottega Louisa and it's at 7th and Grand. It's very noisy but, with lots of different dining options and prices. You can grab something at one of the many food stations or be seated with waiters. The prices are moderate to expensive but, it sure beats the heck out of the filthy fast food joints around the fabric district!!