#TBT: "Black Beauty"
Costume Design by Jenny Beavan
You've probably heard her name in the news lately or seen her showcasing her shiny new Oscar® for Best Costume Design for Mad Max: Fury Road in your social feeds. But Jenny Beavan has had a long and successful career, including a previous Oscar win in 1986 (shared with John Bright) for costume design for A Room with a View.
Beavan's work is as varied as it is respected and long-standing. The futuristic and sinister costumes of Mad Max: Fury Road are a world away from the designs Beavan created for 1994's film adaption of Black Beauty, a beloved children's story told from the perspective of a horse (Black Beauty) originally written in 1877.
Of course, Beavan was no stranger to period costume dramas in 1994. She had already worked on notable films such as The Remains of the Day and Howards End. But Black Beauty makes an interesting case study in costume design, as the story follows families of multiple social classes in England over a period of 20 years as Black Beauty is sold from family to family: from the countryside gentry, to nobility, to the working class of London. It allowed Beavan to showcase her talents by costuming a wide range of styles throughout the Victorian era.
Today's #ThrowbackThursday features the beautiful costumes of Black Beauty.
