Costume Designers Take Their Bows at Guild Awards Ceremony

This is a big week for costume designers. In addition to the Oscar nominations, the Costume Designers Guild, the union for costume designers in stage, film and TV, honored its own with an awards ceremony last weekend.

Colleen Atwood, whose credits include “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Gattaca” and “Wyatt Earp,” won for period/fantasy film for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” for which she has also received an Oscar nomination. Julie Weiss (“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Twelve Monkeys” and “Steel Magnolias”) won for her work in contemporary costume design in “American Beauty.”

In television, Shay Cunliffe won in the period/fantasy category for the special “Annie,” and Patricia Field won for contemporary design in the HBO series “Sex in the City.”

And on Monday begins the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising’s eighth annual “The Art of Motion Picture Costume Design” exhibit. This year, costumes will come from 17 1999 movies, including “Anna and the King,” “Austin Powers II” and “Episode I The Phantom Menace.” FIDM also will open “100 Years of Film Style,” which includes costumes from both Cleopatras--Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor.

What is amazing is that FIDM plans its annual exhibit months in advance and its choices usually line up with the Oscar nominations. This year, the exhibit will have costumes from all five nominees.

The exhibit runs Monday through April 28, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, at the school museum, 919 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Admission is free. (213) 624-1200.

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Oscar Predictions--Every year, Oscar fashion has a few themes connected with the nominated movies. This year, some stylists predict vintage will be hot for a few reasons--Valentino is celebrating his 40th year in the business and there is talk that he is urging someone to wear a vintage dress from his collection.

The Marilyn Monroe estate auction has inspired others. The House of Harry Winston bought two pairs of Monroe’s costume earrings and in an unusual twist will duplicate them in real jewels just in time for the awards show.

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On View--Star Jones, one of the hosts on ABC’s “The View,” will be at Saks Fifth Avenue West in Beverly Hills at 2:30 p.m. Saturday to present her favorite spring looks from the store’s women’s-size department, Salon Z. For more information, call (310) 887-5317.

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Some Amends?--Last week at the New York collections show, demonstrators for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals splattered red paint and threw a tofu pie at two presentations to protest designers’ use of fur.

PETA is urging anyone who had paint or tofu splattered onto their clothes to send their bills to the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the show’s organizers. It was their security guards who “tackled our peaceful protester” and caused his open bottle of red paint to go where it wasn’t intended, said RaeLeann Smith, PETA’s fur campaign coordinator.

And the dog ate our homework this week.

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Senior fashion writer Valli Herman-Cohen contributed to this report.