Mis-en-scene: Disney Cinderella 2015

For this project I really wanted to analyze the transformation scene in the latest version of Cinderella. There is so much that was put into this scene, but I mainly want to focus on the costume designer Sandy Powell, and everything that was put into creating this ball gown.

While I can't get an actual clip from this movie (because it is so new)- Here is a link to the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20DF6U1HcGQ 

Sandy was given free reign on the look of the Cinderella gown. The directors told her she could conceptualize the original Cinderella dress, or scrap it and come up with a completely new idea of her own. After trying out many colors and styles, Sandy decided to stick with the original cerulean blue. The dress took more than 550 hours to make. It boats on countless layers of fine fabrics, and is made up of just over 4 miles of thread! Luckily, all the material is so light. Sandy says that if you were to toss a piece of the material in the air, it would float. Underneath, the actress, Lily James, is wearing a corset and a crinoline over a wire cage (to give the dress its shape). Not only that, but the dress is wired with tiny LED light circuits. The lights were hooked up every time the dress was worn, and they were controlled by a computer. While the dress was quite enchanting on screen, it wasn't quite so comfortable to wear. The actress exclaims that it was "like torture" and was "so tight and delicate". The dress took about 45 min. to get in and out of each time.

Now that we've talked about the gown, let's talk about the shoes! The shoes were made of actual glass! They are Swarovski crystal. There was a lot of research that went into the design of the shoe. Sandy Powell actually went to the Northampton Museum of art, and looked at the older shoes they have on display. She was permitted to look at the archives of the museum, and found the pair of shoes that inspired her glass slipper. The original shoes were created in the 1980s, and had a ridiculously tall 5-inch heel. The museum lent her the shoes, she made a 3D copy of them, and Swarovski turned them into reality. 8 crystal shoes were created to be used on set, but surprisingly enough, none were actually worn by Cinderella herself or by anyone else on set. Lily James has size 9 feet, and the shoes were made to look much smaller. Because they cannot bend, it is basically impossible to have them fit on anyone's feet. Sandy tells us how they made the shoes actually appear to be on Cinderella's feet: She says, "I made a pair of shoes in leather that were the same shape of the original shoe that I found and the same shape as the glass shoe. So a pair of shoes that would actually go onto her foot. Then the visual effects people turned that into the glass shoe. I don’t know how they did that [laughs]. That is the magic of the movies".