What’s hot on the film fashion front:
The movie: “Quiz Show.”
The setup: Popular and attractive quiz show champion Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) becomes the central figure in real-life 1950s “Twenty-One” show scandal, directed by Robert Redford.
The costume designer: Kathy O’Rear, who designed costumes for Redford’s “A River Runs Through It” (with Bernie Pollack).
Hit: Ralph Lauren should be the first in line to see this film, which faithfully glorifies the wonders of preppy chic as it appeared in 1958. It’s right up his alley. Van Doren, a Columbia University English instructor, is a fetching sight in his Donegal tweed blazers, knit ties, soft gray flannel suits and button-down-collar-shirts. So tasteful in that old, rah-rah college way. His father, prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield), is even tweedier, if you can imagine. His faultless texture-on-texture layers (wool plaid ties, windowpane check shirts, tweed suits) are the epitome of East Coast academic style.
Triumph: A gathering of the Van Doren clan for a summer picnic provides an opportunity for a clever prep prank-every man, woman and child wears plaid or check.
Everyone else: How to separate the Van Dorens from the film’s other leads, all men? Or as O’Rear put it, “I’ve got a movie with a bunch of men in suits-how do I make them distinctive?” The solution was to create sharp fashion delineations. Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), a disgruntled “Twenty-One” contestant, is the geek who won’t keep his mouth shut, dressing in noisy colors and prints, including an Indian-blanket bathrobe. (By contrast, the senior Van Doren’s bathrobe is cashmere camel’s hair.) The dogged Congressional investigator, Richard Goodwin (Rob Morrow), agonizes the scandal in rumpled, dingy shirts and serious suits. Game-show producer Dan Enright (David Paymer) looks slick in golf-themed ties, loud vests and shiny, silk Shantung suits.
Inspiration: “Twenty-One” kinescopes from the Museum of Broadcasting in New York, news magazines, old college yearbooks.
Sources: Principals’ clothes were custom-made by several tailors. Button-down-collar shirts were from Brooks Brothers. Stempel’s Indian-blanket bathrobe is from Jet Rag on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles; Mark Van Doren’s cashmere bathrobe is from Paul Stuart, New York. Supporting actors and about 3,000 extras were dressed in rentals and vintage clothes.
