"Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design is the latest book by Deborah Nadoolman Landis.
Landis knows her stuff: she's President of the Hollywood Costume Designers Guild and has been nominated for an Oscar for her designs--which include Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blues Brothers, The Mask, Coming to America (with Eddie Murphy--that was the movie that got her nominated for an Oscar), Three Amigos, Trading Places, Animal House, and others--even Michael Jackson's Thriller video.
She's written other books, has a PhD in Costume Design, and she's also married to director/producer John Landis (which may be how she happened to work on Thriller--John Landis directed it).
Need more credentials? She created the red jacked Michael Jackson wore in Thriller, and as designer for the first Indiana Jones picture, she gets all the credit for his rugged look--fedora, whip, leather jacket, everything." Source:
Hollywood Costume Design
"The men behind the Man in the Mirror were L.A.-based costume designers Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins. They quietly designed most of Jackson's personal and concert tour wardrobes -- tens of thousands of pieces, many with military details -- working from a Michael mannequin in their studio that was built to the singer's exact measurements. The pop star's directive was always, "This is what the world's wearing -- top it," the designers said in 2005. And they tried. One jacket -- worn in a 1990 L.A. Gear ad campaign -- was black suede and covered in miniature gold license plates.
Costume designer Deborah Landis designed the iconic leather "Thriller" jacket, settling on the color after learning that "there would be a huge dance with ghouls, and the ghouls would be very ragged and coming from dust," she said recently. "So I thought, what would make Michael pop? I went through the palette and came up with red."
Jackson understood the power of costume on and off the stage -- and even in court. When he appeared at the Santa Maria courthouse in 2005 to face child molestation charges, his oddly styled get-ups (the famous pajama bottoms and armbands) created a template for a kind of kooky celeb-goes-on-trial look.
It was his face, though, that seemed to hold the most fascination for the public. The never-ending speculation about his rhinoplasties fueled a cultural obsession with plastic surgery as Jackson pursued an ideal of beauty that for him was always just out of reach.
It's almost as if the fashion industry knew it was time for a Jackson tribute. The pop singer's influence was everywhere on the runway this past season, in the crystal-dusted jackets at Balmain, Givenchy's gold-studded jackets and the sequined gloves at Louis Vuitton.
Swarovski had been tapped to bedazzle the costumes for Jackson's comeback tour beginning next month in London. It would have been a fashion spectacle for the ages."
Source:
http://www.latimes.com/features/life...,2997599.story