45+ Brilliant Costume Details From Movies And TV Shows

So much goes into making a movie or TV show great. You need an amazing script, even better actors, and a talented director-producer duo. But those are just the obvious parts.

Much of what keeps an audience interested lies in the more subtle details, such as masterful camera work, a fitting soundtrack – and clever costumes. A character’s style and fashion choices can convey their personality and evolution, and also give us clues about the plot. These are some of our favorite brilliant costume details from movies and TV shows.

The 2005 drama Memoirs Of A Geisha actually won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, and it’s easy to understand why. The beautiful clothes appear genuine, but have been cleverly modified and updated to be more appealing to a modern audience, and also to reflect the characters and their journeys.

Bad girl Hatsumomo, for example, wears plenty of bold red, yellow, and orange. Whereas our heroine Sayuri wears more pastel colors and flower patterns. We can also see her outfits getting more exclusive and elegant the more successful she becomes.

One of Quentin Tarantino’s many talents, is his ability to create original characters who’s outfits and lines immediately make them part of pop culture. Alongside Pulp Fiction’s Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace, the heroine in Kill Bill, might be the most iconic character, and the most emulated at Halloween parties.

Of course, the cinephiles out there will know the yellow one piece is a homage to Bruce Lee in 1978’s Game Of Death. Which is fitting, as Kill Bill in itself is a homage to classic martial arts movies.

Far from every costume designer is as creative as Amy Westcott, the one who designed the costumes for the 2013 sci-fi movie After Earth. While doing research to find inspiration for the costumes in this futuristic story, she came across some interesting facts about beetles.

Some of them actually change color and go darker when facing danger, presumably to scare off their enemies. And when they die, they turn pale yellow. Amy thought this was really interesting, and therefore included these traits in the characters’ bodysuits.

Guillermo del Toro, the writer and director behind the 2015 horror drama Crimson Peak, is known to use costumes to convey symbolism. And you can definitely learn a lot about the main character Edith, just by analyzing her outfits.

She wears plenty of gold, and this represents her wealth. She also wears lots of Victorian mourning jewelry, which tells us how much the death of her mother has affected her. That unique buckle is a carving of her mother’s hands, and the skull pin is a blatant symbol of death being very present in Edith’s life.

Mr. Anderson. It’s basically impossible to read that without hearing it in Agent Smith’s voice. Which speaks volumes to how iconic this character is. Pretty much every main character from the Matrix series is iconic, to be fair. But there is something about Agent Smith’s simplicity and directness that makes him such a terrifying antagonist. So how was him and his look created?

The inspiration came from 60’s Secret Service agents, combined with actor Hugo Weaving drawing inspiration from the character Captain Hercule Platini in the sitcom Red Dwarf. A very random combination that worked out perfectly.

Us celeb and movie nerds love a clever homage hidden in clothes. This one is pretty different, as it doesn’t pay tribute to another movie or character (which is usually the case). Here it was instead actor Ryan Reynolds wanting to acknowledge his friendship with Taylor Swift.

Ryan, his wife Blake Lively and Taylor have been close for years. So in Deadpool 2 you can see Wade sporting a T-shirt with two of Taylor’s beloved cats, Meredith and Olivia. Pretty adorable!

The Coen brothers are basically creative masterminds, and are never scared to take the road less travelled when making movies. When it came to The Big Lebowski, they quickly realized the unemployed, lazy Dude, could not be created in a costume department.

Because putting too much thought into his less than fashionable outfits, would make his look less authentic. They instead went with letting the very down to earth Jeff Bridges bring his own ugliest, oldest lounge wear from his own closet. The result speaks for itself.

Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland is not considered his best work, but it’s hard to deny the costume department did a great job! The whimsical, colorful look of this modern interpretation of the classic 19th century novel is beyond unique.

Each character’s outfits represent their personalities and stories. Let’s look at the Red Queen for example. The black, red, and white play with her proportions, making her look as odd as she behaves, and also shows how tacky she is. And the hearts on her black soles makes her shoes look like fake Louboutins (again, tacky).

The Stranger Things kids love Halloween, and in season 2 they dress up as Ghostbusters for the spooky holiday. If you paid attention, you might have noticed Will’s costume looked a lot more handmade than the rest of the gangs’.

The show’s costume designer Kim Wilcox has said they always try to make the clothes the kids wear a reflection of their home environment and backgrounds. Considering Will’s mom is a single mom, struggling to make ends meet, it makes sense she couldn’t afford to buy him the costume.

Grey’s Anatomy may still be running, but many would argue it’s far from its glory days of the first few seasons. And we are still more heartbroken over Izzie and Danny than any of the other loves stories that have played out on the show since.

Danny passed away in season 2, in the most tear jerking episode ever, and Izzie’s grief affects her massively. One sad but also beautiful detail that shows us how much she misses Danny, is her wearing that sweater he knitted her.

The beloved Big Bang character Sheldon Cooper is a huge fan of anything geek culture, and one of those is the comic The Flash. We often see him wearing this T-shirt with the symbol, among other references to the comic.

So of course it was very fitting that in the The Flash series, they would sneak in a little nod to Sheldon Cooper. In the season one pilot, Cisco Ramon can be seen wearing a Bazinga T-shirt. Geek culture at its finest!

Bridgerton is the most recent Netflix success, and the show is a colorful, romantic drama filled with cool details to analyze. This is one most missed, because it doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve read the books the show is based on.

Benedict, the second eldest son of the wealthy Bridgerton family, has a bee embroidered onto his shirt collar. Bees can also be seen unusually much throughout the show. This alludes to the family patriarch dying from a bee sting, leading to Benedict developing an intense fear of bees, something which most likely will be explored further in season 2.

Arthur in the 2019 Joker starts out looking more like you’re typical clown. Goofy outfits, a silly wig, a huge clown nose. But as he changes throughout the movie, so does his appearance.

The closer he is to becoming the villain Joker, the more stripped down and dark is his clown costume. In the end we’re left with the more simple face paint clown makeup, his own hair slicked back, and a clown inspired suit rather than a real clown costume.

The legend Judy Garland did not lead an easy life, and had plenty of health issues. This was accurately depicted in the 2019 musical about her life, Judy. Even the costume department made sure to be as realistic as possible.

Renée Zellweger perfectly mimicked the real Judy’s mannerisms, voice, and unique posture – and her clothes had to be made accordingly. The real Judy had a round back and concave belly, so all the clothes were made to fit that unique body shape.

Smallville, the critically acclaimed Superman series which ran for a decade in the early 2000s, is still seen by many as the best small screen adaption of the comic. It had great acting, interesting storylines, and a pretty good costume department too.

You might remember Clark Kent’s outfits in the beginning. He wears the combination red and blue very often for a guy who is not yet Superman. This is of course a clever way to remind the audience of his real identity, and foreshadows his future Superman costume.

The characters on Black Panther all have their own colors, which they can be seen predominantly wearing throughout the movie. For example, Nakia is mostly green, Okoye mostly red, and T’Challa is purple and black.

Ruth E. Carter, the head costume designer of the movie, has said the intention was to use the colors just the way they do in comic books. As a way to give each character their own easily identifiable look and identity.

Caroline Hubbard is a wealthy widow in Agatha Christie’s classic Murder On The Orient Express. In the 2017 dramatization of the book, Michelle Pfeiffer expertly portrays this character. And her personality is magnified by her clothes.

This character has many more, and more complex, outfits than any of the others. This was done on purpose. Caroline is a Broadway actress, someone used to herself playing characters (Caroline isn’t even her real name). She is inspired by the destinations they travel through, and always wears over the top creations – just like she is always over the top.

In season 3 of Game Of Thrones, Sansa Stark wears this stunning dress when she reluctantly marries Tyrion Lannister. But it’s not just a pretty dress. The embroidery contains images that depict her story.

A couple of the events depicted are a Stark direwolf dominated by a Lannister lion, and a lion wearing a crown (which represents Joffrey). There are even more lions on the back, which also symbolizes how Sansa, once a Stark, is now part of the Lannisters.

Hidden Figures takes place during the 1960s, a time when women still felt the pressure to wear girdles. Many view this piece of clothing as oppressive, as it is uncomfortable and restrictive. So the costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus felt it was important the actresses wore them, to keep their appearances more historically accurate.

Lead actress Taraji P. Henson has stated she fully agreed, that despite how uncomfortable it was – it helped her get into character and identify with the women of that time.

The Halloween serial killer Michael Myers is terrifying, we can all agree on that. But where did that weird mask come from? It’s actually a pretty funny story.

The costume department team got the idea to use an old William Shatner mask, which had previously been used while filming Star Trek. The result is the weird ill-fitting mask we all know and fear. The actor William Shatner apparently just laughed at his face mold being turned into an iconic horror movie killer mask, and even wore it himself one Halloween.

This is a very obvious costume detail, but nevertheless a brilliant one! In the fiftieth anniversary episode of the celebrated Doctor Who series, we first met the scientist Petronella Osgood. And she consistently wears outfits which reflect the Doctor’s past regenerations, a detail any hardcore fan of the show will love.

Here we just show a couple of examples; the Tom Barker scarf and a bow tie (which references both Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee.)

Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter is probably one of the most iconic movie characters of all times. There aren’t many movies where 16 minutes of screen time leaves audiences with such a powerful impression.

That’s right, Anthony Hopkins is only in 16 minutes of the masterpiece The Silence Of The Lambs, but his stellar acting and that creepy mask is what everyone remembers best.The mask perfectly captures Hannibal Lecter’s wild nature, which needs to be contained to prevent him from causing more harm.

A good costume designer comes up with clever ways to convey characteristics, themes, and even plot points through costumes. And that doesn’t always mean gorgeously designed dresses or color coding. Sometimes something as tiny and seemingly insignificant as a hole in a sweater, is very deliberate.

That is the case with Ransom’s sweaters in Knives Out. This character is messy, disorganized, and disrespectful. So costume designer Jenny Eagan said she felt the holes fits someone with that personality.

Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina is filled with horror movie references, which is fitting considering it’s a fairly dark show about a teen witch. Both in themes, imagery, and the characters’ clothing this can be seen throughout the four seasons.

Sabrina’s style is a combination of goth and 60’s chic, and one of her most iconic looks in the first season is this dress. Which is basically a copy of another iconic leading lady; Mia Farrow, and her dress in the1968 horror Rosemary’s Baby.

Jo and Laurie in Little Women are supposed to be soulmates, and this is showcased in many ways throughout the 2019 adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet. And the two actors actually helped come up with one of the ways, alongside esteemed costume designer Jacqueline Durran.

If you look closely, throughout the movie you will notice Jo and Laurie wear each others clothes. It’s done in a subtle yet very cute way, to signal how these two are in fact each other’s other half.

The X-Files creator Chris Carter has always stated the 1974 drama series Kolchak: Night Stalker was a massive influence for The X-Files. Mulder & Scully Meet The Were-Monster was the much awaited three-episode revival of The X-Files, which aired over a decade after the original show had ended.

In it we meet the character Guy Mann (played by Rhys Darby), and his entire straw-hat, striped suit and knitted tie outfit was a nod to Darren McGavin’a outfit in the 1970s series (who was the inspiration for Mulder).

During the eight Harry Potter movies, all the characters’ outfits change over time, with the exception of Professor Snape. He always wears his all-black outfit.

This was done deliberately, despite costume designers changing throughout the movies and tweaking most characters’ styles according to their own artistic vision. But everyone agreed, nothing represented Snape better than black. Considering how terribly he behaves, we have to agree (and we do know he turns out to be a good guy, but he’s the meanest good guy in fictional history.)

To give credit where credit’s due, those blood red cloaks and white caps were thought up by Margaret Atwood, the author who wrote the 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. But the costume department still did an impressive job of making the clothes heighten the atmosphere and power dynamics in this dystopian world.

Head designer Natalie Bronfman and her team drew from the psychology of color, and how colors relate to hierarchies. They used all of this, on top of the descriptions in the novel, to create the various costumes.

Little Women is yet another historical drama which makes great use of color palettes to give each main character (in other words, the March sisters) her own individual style.

Jo can always be seen wearing strong indigo and red, Amy prefers pale blue, Meg rocks lavender and green, and finally Beth is earthy brown and feminine pink. Costume designer Jacqueline Durran has revealed they got the inspiration for the colors in the books. They’re the colors on the notebooks given to the sisters by Marmee.

Whether you love This Is Us, or think it’s too cheesy and sentimental – it’s hard to deny it’s an ambitious project. Following a family and their three kids from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood, three actors per sibling were needed. This requires a lot of hard work for the costume department, which needs to create many more outfits.

This is one adorable detail that shows they really paid attention to detail. The magic T-Shirt Jack gives his daughter Kate, is the same he himself wore when going on his first date with her mom years earlier.

New York native Olivia Wilde has said she felt like an outsider when she first moved to Los Angeles, as her entire wardrobe was adapted to the east coast’s colder climate. She incorporated that in her directing debut, Booksmart.

In the beginning of the movie, we see Molly wearing fall clothes on the last day of school before summer vacation (and it’s clearly hot out). She does this as a way to stand out, but it’s also a sign of her feeling of not fitting in with her peers.

Olivia on Scandal goes through a personal transformation when she decides to leave Fitz, and also undergoes an abortion. Her becoming stronger through this difficult process, is beautifully expressed in her clothes.

She suddenly starts wearing more bold and colorful clothes, combining orange, red, yellow, and purple. The head costume designer Lyn Paolo has said this was their way of showing a woman who was trying to reinvent herself, after a massive change in her life.

Time traveling from 1945 to the 1700s has never looked as cool as on Outlander, and the costume department on this show definitely had a blast. For everyone who arrives back in the 1740s, fitting in is of course their first problem.

Once Brianna arrives in Scotland, we can actually see that she gets to borrow some of Claire’s clothes from season 1, such as the green plaid dress and a coat with a fur hood.

In a glimpse of a young Donna, we see her wear a butterfly necklace. In the sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Donna has passed away, and there is a beautiful scene as Sophie’s baby boy is getting baptized.

She sings My Love, My Life with the “ghost” of her mother, and flashbacks to Donna’s younger self at Sophie’s baptism. In this scene, Sophie is wearing a dress which features a butterfly pattern. This of course a homage to her late mother.

In the thriller Widows, three widows find themselves bonded when their thee criminal husbands get killed during an armed robbery. To Veronica, the main character, it’s a shock to learn about her husband’s criminal background, and we see her clothes change the more dirty secrets she digs up from his past.

They get darker and darker, until eventually, she wears black from head to toe. It’s a pretty simple and straight forward metaphor, but highly effective.

Spoiler warning here, but in the series finale of GOT, Sansa triumphantly becomes Queen in the North. And the dress she wears in this moment, carries meaning. Parts and patterns on it all pay tribute to herself and her family.

We see a and a sewing needle which represents herself, black cloak for Jon, black fur representing Rickon, and a crown for Robb. Furthermore those red, Weirwood leaves are for Bran, the grey gown is for Ned, and the cloak for Arya. Talk about well planned out!

Eagle-eyed fans of the comic Watchmen, might have noticed Cal and Angela’s kids in the 2019 series can be seen wearing these cute costumes. It’s an owl and a pirate. This is of course a clever nod to the source material.

Because in the 1989 comic Watchmen, Nite Owl and Tales of the Black Freighter was a pirate book comic. Whenever comics are turned into big or small screen adaptions, it has almost become custom to pay these kinds of homages.

In season 3 of Stranger things, we’re introduced to Robin. She’s a no nonsense artistic girl who works together with Steve at the ice cream parlor the mall. He has a crush on her, something he admits in this emotional scene as they’re stuck in the public bathroom.

Robin says she cannot reciprocate his feelings – as she likes girls. A hint to this secret she has been keeping can be seen on her Converse shoes. She has drawn all over them, and they are covered in drawings of the female body and the phrase “”God likes you too”.

In that party scene from Get Out, we already get the feeling something is kind of off with these people (although we have no idea how much!). The clothes help cement who they are, especially in comparison to Chris.

Rose’s parents and their friends are all wearing black and white, some with a few red details. Red is a color often associated with secret societies. Black and white both shows these people are rich and elegant, but is also suppose to symbolize the racial tensions bubbling under the surface.

This is a cute and effective way to convey Hermione, Harry, and Ron’s varied personalities, just by how they tie their Gryffindor scarves. Hermione’s is perfectly in order, and Ron’s is just thrown around his neck in a sloppy manner (and looks like it will fall off any second).

Harry’s is sort if in between his two friends’. And that pretty much sums up these three. They’re all Gryffindors, so they’re all brave when it matters, but other than that very different from one another.

It kind of makes sense a show filled with zombies, would draw inspiration from zombies from older horror classics. In The Walking Dead, the costume department has really had fun with this. Throughout he show you can spot many, if you really pay attention. Such as these two examples pictured.

The top picture are of “flyboy”, who first appeared in the 1978 horror movie Dawn Of The Dead. The bottom is Bub, who we first met in the 1985’s Day Of The Dead.

Did you notice something odd about Theon/Reek’s outfit at Sansa and Ramsay Bolton’s wedding in GOT? Did it look strangely familiar to you? You weren’t imagining it, you really had seen it before.

Minus the cloak claps, it’s the exact same clothes Robb Stark King in the North wore at the Red Wedding. The wedding where him, his mother and thousands of his soldiers were killed by the Boltons. The costume designers picked that outfit for Theon/Reek purposefully, to make the scene extra brutal.

This is a pretty random but fun little costume detail from Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek, which you may have missed. Usually TV shows don’t put any particular focus on promoting thrifting or wearing hand-me-downs. But that happens here.

In the series finale, Twyla’s black dress she wears to Patrick and David’s wedding has been used before. It used to be Alexi’s dress, and as you might remember Alexis gave Twyla a bunch of her old clothes.

Remember Firefly? It’s one of those unlikely cult shows, that was canceled after just one season – but still has a massive fan base today, almost two decades later.

In Firefly, and the movie Serenity which is a continuation of the series, Nathan Fillion plays Malcolm Reynolds who’s the captain of the transport ship Serenity. In Castle, Nathan Fillion plays the author Richard Castle. Richard dresses up in one of the series Halloween episodes, and of course it’s a homage to the actor’s old character Malcolm Reynolds.

Many TV show creators and directors like to put little inside jokes or references to their previous work. It’s fun for them and us the audience, so we’re not complaining! This is one of many such references in The Walking Dead, which specifically relates to costumes.

In season one, Carl Grimes can be seen wearing this T-shirt. The logo on it is the logo of Science Dog from the Invincible series, a comic made by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman.

Nothing is accidental on Breaking Bad. Everything is perfectly thought through by the creators, and expertly portrayed by the cast. The show is also filled with color symbolism, and nods to movie culture in everything from costumes, to lines, to production design.

In season 5 we see a great example here in this scene. Saul is wearing an outfit that is an exact copy of Tony Montana’s in Scarface. Saul’s face is bruised, and he says a line where he asks if the wounds will leave a scar. Pretty clever.

It’s hard to forget to weird fashion of The Capitol Elite in The Hunger Games. It can probably be best described as a combination of tacky, luxurious and Lady Gaga. So what was the point of dressing them like that?

First of all, to make them stand out in a very obvious way from the citizens of all the other, poor districts. But also to show the elite too are prisoners to the cruel system of the nation of Panem. Their outfits are incredibly uncomfortable and constrictive, and you can tell Effie for example can barely move. This symbolizes the elite too have to follow certain strict rules to play their part in the system.

The costume design for the Oscar winning 2012 movie adaptation of Anna Karenina, took a pretty creative approach to fashion in 1870s Imperial Russia. But it really worked.

The costumes were designed with the correct century in mind, but also heavily influenced by 1950s fashion. The idea was to create a stunning, lavish visual that correlates with the idea the audience has of the classic love story. The color schemes also played a part, where Keira Knightley’s rebellious Anna Karenina wears a lot of black, whereas the innocent Kitty wears more white.

In hindsight, Flashdance doesn’t make too much sense. But the random plot isn’t what made it go down in history as a cult classic. This movie is all about the dancing, and the 80’s fashion! The movie had barely hit theaters in 1983, before the dance and sports wear fashion of the 80’s exploded.

What many don’t know, is that the now iconic grey sweater Alex wears, happened by accident. Jennifer Beals shrank a sweater when doing laundry, and cut out the neck to make it more comfortable. The costume designer liked it, and included the style.

West Side Story is a colorful, musical masterpiece and there is an impressive amount of detail and symbolism in the clothing. One of the most obvious is the color coded gangs. The Sharks are red, pink, and purple, whereas the Jets more blue, yellow, and green.

Much thought was also put into Juliet’s outfits and colors, which change throughout the story. At first she wears white, which symbolizes her being neutral. But later on we see her in more colors, and she even wraps herself in a pale purple netting – a hint that she is falling for a Shark…