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Monica Howe

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Monica Howe is a British costume designer. She has been nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design twice, for Bugsy Malone (1976) and The House of Mirth (2000). Her career includes social realist and literary adaptations for both TV and cinema releases from 1974–2000.

Career

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Howe's first film costume design project was Bugsy Malone, a musical about American gangsters featuring only child actors, directed by Alan Parker.[1] The costumes for Bugsy Malone were nominated for a BAFTA Best Costume Design award,[2] and several were later acquired by the BFI for the Museum of the Moving Image on the South Bank in London.[3]

The actors in the film had an average of twelve, which gave an added complexity to the costume design. Press at the time recorded, "Howe and her army of helpers had to supply nearly 500 cut-down but absolutely authentic 1920s costumes".[4] Despite the ages of the performers, the filmmakers wanted to make the film as "uncompromised as possible - the cars, the spurge-guns, the clothes", according to Executive Producer David Puttnam.[5] Bespoke costume for principal cast were made by theatrical costumiers Wallace & McMurray.[3]

For the film Breaking Glass (1980), Monica Howe worked with co-designer Lorna Hillyard to dress actor Hazel O'Connor as Kate, a pop star in the dystopian late 1970s music industry. The film historian Claire Monk has observed that the designers, "excel in providing Kate with a succession of on- and off-stage looks which draw credibly on new wave trends (from Gary Numan to Blondie) while expressing her transformation to glossy product".[6]

The following year, Howe designed costumes for The BBC television adaptation of D H Lawrence's The Trespasser (1981). A decade later, she costumed another literary adaption, E M Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), starring Helena Bonham Carter and Helen Mirren.[7]

In 1983, Howe did the costumes for ‘Tales Out of School’, a series of four films about contemporary England, education and unemployment, written for television by David Leland, and shown on ITV: The Birth of a Nation (directed by Mike Newell); Flying into the Wind;[8] RHINO; and Made in Britain. In the last of the four, Howe dressed actor Tim Roth in his breakout role as a young skinhead.[9]

Monica Howe had a long-standing collaboration with the director Terence Davies. Her first project with Davies was designing costumes for Distant Voices, Still Lives, an acclaimed period film that is a "highly stylised" vision of the 1950s.[10][11] Later collaborations with the director included The Long Day Closes; The Neon Bible and The House of Mirth. Davies's biographer, Monica Everett, explained that Monica Howe was chosen for her considerable skill and experience, and also the ‘affinities’ with Davies, having grown up around the same time.[12] Davies himself described Howe as "a costume designer of genius".[13]

Howe's final film credit was for The House of Mirth (2000), the Terence Davies-directed adaptation of Edith Wharton’s story of hypocrisy and predatory practices in Old New York. Howe's costumes achieved widespread acclaim from contemporary critics. The Denver Post wrote: "Wearing costume designer Monica Howe's gorgeously outsized hats (you could sit in one!) and tapered outfits, [actor Gillian] Anderson looks as if she's an elegant artwork".[14] And they have remained popular among fans of period costuming: "mournful veils, gauzy flounces, and apparitions of blood-red eveningwear indicate a more theatrical understanding of social mores",[15] or simply described as "gorgeous".[16] In academic critique, Howe's costumes have been described as a "remarkable" translation of historic fashion to film.[17]

Awards and nominations

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Award Year Category Work Result Ref.
British Academy Film Awards 1977 Best Costume Design Bugsy Malone Nominated [18]
2001 The House of Mirth Nominated [19]
Satellite Awards 2001 Best Costume Design Nominated [20]

References

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  1. ^ "British Council Film: Bugsy Malone". film-directory.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  2. ^ Leese, Elizabeth (1991). Costume design in the movies: an illustrated guide to the work of 157 great designers. New York: Dover Publ. ISBN 978-0-486-26548-3.
  3. ^ a b Howe, Monica; Wallace & McMurray (c. 1976), Bugsy Malone, retrieved 2025-04-07
  4. ^ "No Kids Stuff for Bugsy". Runcorn Weekly News. 9 September 1976. p. 12.
  5. ^ "Paramount Presents: BUGSY MALONE | Le Cinema Paradiso Blu-Ray reviews and DVD reviews". lecinemaparadiso.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  6. ^ Bell, Melanie; Williams, Melanie, eds. (2010). British women's cinema. British popular cinema. London New York: Routledge. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-203-87200-0.
  7. ^ Kendra (1991-05-07). "Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) short review". Frock Flicks. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  8. ^ Leland, David (1985). Flying into the wind. Internet Archive. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-31373-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  9. ^ Leland, David (1986). Made in Britain. Internet Archive. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-31371-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  10. ^ Farley, Paul (2006). Distant voices, still lives. BFI modern classics. British Film Institute. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-1-83871-535-9.
  11. ^ Monaco, James, ed. (1992). The movie guide: a comprehensive, alphabetical listing og the most important films ever made. New York, NY: Perigee Book. ISBN 978-0-399-51780-8.
  12. ^ Everett, Wendy (2004). Terence Davies: British Film Makers. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-7190-6062-5.
  13. ^ Farley, Paul (2006). Distant voices, still lives. BFI modern classics. British Film Institute. London: British Film Institute. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-83871-535-9.
  14. ^ "Denver Entertainment/The Scene: The Denver Post". extras.denverpost.com. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  15. ^ "The Best Costumes of 2000 - Blog - The Film Experience". thefilmexperience.net. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  16. ^ Kendra (2000-05-07). "The House of Mirth (2000) short review". Frock Flicks. Retrieved 2025-04-07.
  17. ^ Masiola, Rosanna (2023). Fashion Narrative and Translation: Is Vanity Fair?. Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-7936-4730-6.
  18. ^ "30th BAFTA Film Awards". British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Retrieved February 4, 2023.
  19. ^ Forde, Leon (31 January 2001). "Gladiator leads nominations for revamped Baftas". Screendaily.com. Archived from the original on July 15, 2024. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
  20. ^ Reifsteck, Greg (December 18, 2000). "'Gladiator,' 'Traffic' lead Golden Sat noms". Variety. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
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