Rolling out the Academy Award® Red Carpet…

 Our Designed for Drama: Fashion from the Classics exhibition beginning February 10 gives you the opportunity to take a closer look at costumes from six films nominated for an Academy Award® in Costume Design—including an Oscar® winner!

British costume designer Jacqueline Durran was honored with an Academy Award® in 2012 for her interpretation of late 19th-century Russian attire for Anna Karenina. Five of the costumes she designed for the film will be on display in the Second Floor Living Hall of Biltmore House.

Anna Karenina is the third film for which Durran worked with director Joe Wright and actress Keira Knightley. Their previous projects, Pride and Prejudice (2006) and Atonement (2008), each earned Durran an Academy Award® nomination for her designs. The designer was also nominated for her work in Mr. Turner (2015).

The Designed for Drama exhibition also includes costumes from five other films whose designers were nominated for an Academy Award® :

• Finding Neverland (2004); designed by Alexandra Byrne, a four-time nominee who won an Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).
• Sleepy Hollow (1999); designed by Colleen Atwood, an eleven-time nominee and three-time Oscar winner for Chicago (2002), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), and Alice in Wonderland (2010).
• Jane Eyre (2011); designed by Michael O’Connor, a three-time nominee who won an Oscar for The Duchess (2008).
• The Portrait of a Lady (1996); designed by Janet Patterson, a four-time nominee.

As part of our exhibition preview, a costume from Sense and Sensibility (1995), designed by Jenny Beavan and John Bright, is on display at the Winery in Antler Hill Village. As a costume design team, Beavan and Bright have shared six Academy Award® nominations—including one for Sense and Sensibility—and won an Oscar for their work in A Room with a View (1985).

Feature image: Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Alicia Vikander as Vronsky and Kitty in Anna Karenina; photo credit: ANNA KARENINA ©2012 Universal Pictures Limited.