2013 TV releases and whats to come

As the year once again draws to an end and 2014 is almost amongst us, we take the time to reflect on what has been yet another great year. In this post we will purely be focusing on T.V realises this year as well as a sneak peek into whats to come next year. From media warfare between the two biggest Australian television and newspaper empires to solving mysteries and murders with a doctor as well as many more memorable TV moments.

1. Dr Blake Mysteries

Doctor Lucien Blake, who returns home to Ballarat in 1959 to take over his late father’s general medical practice after an absence of 30 years. Doctor Blake is a keeper of secrets and a solver of mysteries.

We made several suits for Dr Blake played byCraig Mclachlan, which he appears in them more than often

2. A place to call home

Set in Northern New South Wales in the period following World War II, it follows Sarah Adams, who has returned to Australia after twenty years abroad to start a new life and ends up clashing with wealthy matriarch Elizabeth Bligh. Mainly focusing on the social change of the 1950s.

1940s-50s shirts is something we have made several times before, such as for Gangster Squad and Captain America. So it is no wonder why we are asked to make dozens of shirts for this production .

3. Madonna: MDNA Tour

 Madonna returns to stadiums and arenas for her ninth tour, and the highest grossing tour of 2012.

We very pleased to be able to make costumes for this music tour as compared to Movies, theatre, opera and TV its not something we do as often. We made many costumes for the male backing dancers and musicians.

4. Power Games: The packer-Murdoch Story

Power Games is about the making of Modern Australia through the eyes of competing media moguls. Spanning 1960 to 1972, Power Games takes us behind the scenes of Australia’s newspaper and television empires. Inside the Packer family, Sir Frank controls the family business with a mix of generosity and terror.

For this hit sequel to the power games series we made everything from 2-3 piece suits, shirts, ties, jackets, waistcoats from all of the main cast to waiters and other extras.

5. The mentalist

A famous “psychic” outs himself as a fake and starts working as a consultant for theCalifornia Bureau of Investigation so he can find “Red John,” the madman who killed his wife and daughter.

We were asked to supply some authentic Thai Fabric from our stock as well as a few garments such as Sarongs.

SNEAK PEAK INTO NEXT YEAR:

If you have been following us that you will know that we are currently working onRussel Crowe‘s director debut “The Water Diviner” which is set to be realised next year and Guillermo Del Toro gothic romance ” Haunted Peak” which won’t reach the big screen until 2015. Lets not forget…

The Knick

Clive Owen takes on the role of Dr John W as we take a look at the professional and personal lives of the staff at New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital during the early part of the twentieth century. Not much has yet been realised on this upcoming TV series however its due for a 2014 realise so watch this space.

We made around about 100 costumes consisting of Shirts, Waistcoats and Jackets.

Next time we will be reflecting on our stage work, from theatre and opera.

2013 Movie releases: From Siam to Hollywood

As the year once again draws to an end and 2014 is almost amongst us, we take the time to reflect on what has been yet another great year. In this post we will be focusing purely on the movies we have worked on. Whether its fighting off Ninjas in Japan, Uniting with the gods and saving the world, Being held captive on the Thai/Burma Border by Japanese soldiers, Taking down one of Los angeles most notorious Gangsters, Stealing treasure off a Dragon and many more memorable stories.

The Following are films that we worked on the year before however saw there release this year:

1. Gangster Squad (January 11th 2013)

The area is Los Angeles and the year is 1949, the notorious Jewish gangster Micky Cohen; who is short in both height and temper, though his organised crime empire is at large and due to this he has taken over the city. An undercover crew of police officers led by a determined sergeant, do everything they can to take down the boss and not exactly by the book.

It was our first time working with the wonderful costume designer Mary Zophres who has worked on classic after classic from "O brother where art thou", "Catch me if you can" and "No country for old men". Although it wasn't out first or second time working the costume designer assistant, Terry Anderson who has worked on hit films such as "3:10 to Yuma", "Inception" and "J.Edgar". We worked with Terry a year before on "Captain America" where we made a load of 1940's suits shirts footwear etc which is why when we got the order for Gangster Squad it was something we were very familiar with,we ended up making again Suits, Overcoats, Shirts and Ties.

2. The Wolverine (26th July)

After trying to live a somewhat normal life among ordinary people, out of the blue Wolverine is summoned to Japan, where he meets an ex Japanese soldier, who he had saved during the war however he is now sitting in his death bed on top of a multi million business. Wolverine is offered the one thing that he deemed indefinite by most but impossible for him, that being death. He finally gets to face his demons.

Once again it was our first time working with costume designer Isis Mussenden who did an amazing job on the Narnia trilogy. For The Wolverine we made the Ninjas outfits that you see when Wolverine is captured by these feinds . They also appear when the leader of the Ninja's fights alongside Wolverine in the finale fight scene.

3. Thor: The Dark World (30th October)

It's been two years since Thor was last with Jane, a lot has happened since then. The leader of the dark elves has managed to get his hands on a weapon that could destroy earth as well as the Asgard empire. Thor is forced to team up with his once arch enemy, blood bound brother Loki  and Jane discovers a wormhole that will change everything.

We supplied Footwear for this hit sequel.

4. The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (13th December)

The Dwarfs and Hobbits are it again as they continue their quest and venture deeper into the unknown, this time without the great wizard Gandalf, where he has disappeared off to? only time will tale. Bilbo must now prove his worthiness and fulfil his agreement as a burglar and steal off the last remaining dragon on middle-earth, Smaug.

We supplied haps  of Haberdasheries, Footwear, Trimmings, Fabrics and Jewellery, which will also be featured on the final instalment of the highly anticipated trilogy.

5. 47 Ronin (25th December)

A band of samurai set out to avenge the death and dishonor of their master at the hands of a ruthless shogun.

We supplied fabric for this fantasy action packed blockbuster.

6. The Railwayman (26th December)

The Railwayman based on the autobiography of Eric Lomax, who was one among thousands of prisoner of war, forced to build the railway between Thailand and India. After making a secret radio to inform and warn other prisoners, Eric is tortured, beaten and isolated. It is not until after the war when he meets Patti and falls in love. With her help and support , she enables him overcome his traumatic past. However the past is never that far away, when he meets up with his comrades the whereabout of the man who took him so near to deaths door is known and Lomax is elected to reap revenge on savage sadistic adversary

It was our first time working with the  designer Lizzy Gardiner who was the youngest designer to win an oscar for costume, and rightly so "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"was an amazing piece of work on an almost non-existent budget.. This was the largest amount of costumes we made for a movie last year, with hundreds upon hundreds of Uniforms, shirts, footwear and headwear  for both the Japanese/Allied  soldiers, Officers and prisoners. So we look forward to Boxing day where we finally get to see how our costumes look on the big screen.

Next time we will be looking at the costumes we made for Movies and T.V series this year however won't be realised until next year or the year after.

Company Cribs: Siam Costumes Part 3

Last and not least, we will be having a look at the third and final building of Siam Costumes. By now you should have a gist of what to expect,and  as promised we will have a look into our stock room unfortunately due to privacy policies we hold with our clients, we won't be showing you anything that we are working on currently. Shall we begin?

We shall skip the ground floor, as it's the other side of the workshop which I mostly covered on the last post. As we make our way to the second floor here is a brief sample of our zip stock, the reason why they are placed here is because these are the most commonly used zips, also if you notice we have Saddam Hussein looking over them for safe keeping.

Here is some of our tens of thousand buttons, bought from all over Asia mainly being Hong Kong. Almost every production we have worked on consist of at least one of these buttons.

Here is half of our military insignias, mainly consisting of Nazi WW2 insignias from Inglorious Basterds. As well as a load of braiding, and trimmings which comes in handy more often than not, especially for light entertainment productions.

Some more buttons and buckles, this half is made up of wooden and plastic buttons.

The firs room holds thousands of fabric samples , from stores all around Asia but once again mainly Hong Kong and China. Sorry about the mess I swear there was a time when it was all neatly organised, and those boxes ,yes you guessed correctly those are filled with hundreds more fabric samples.

The reason why we have a room dedicated to these store samples, is because before they were placed in boxes and Darryl tends to remind us " I hate having things in boxes, you just can never find what you are looking for" which is a fair point. Having the samples placed on the wall, in fabric categories I.e wools and Velvets…allows us and the clients to easily navigate our way through and find the suitable fabric.

Don't worry Its not what It looks like, Siam Costumes aren't secretly part of a racist cult. These are arm bands from which movie? Seabiscuit? Seriously thats your answer, I've already mentioned the film one or two times, "Inglorious Basterds".

Oops sorry to interrupt, didn't know this kind of party was going on up here. Ill leave you guys to it.

This room is packed with more fabric, mainly the heavy rolled ones. Also a lot of our light entertainment such as fabric used for Theme Parks, is later stored within this room.

Here is a collection of our unique ties, thats right i said unique, we have hundreds of plain black and white ties stored away in the cupboard. However these beautiful ties are very unique in each design.They have also previously been used in several 1930-50s productions.

Onto the last room of the tour, and what  room is more worthy of an encore than the stock room. This room is where we store a lot of our samples and prototypes of previous and upcoming productions.

You may remember this from a previous post. Its The Hollywood Letter characters from Universal Studios Singapore, Hollywood dreams parade.

One of our several prototypes from Tarantino's classic remake Inglorious Basterds.

A prototype from an upcoming WW2 production, so remember where you saw it first.

A sample from Opera Australia Carmen.

Any super hero fans? You may recognise this costume although the scenes they were worn in were very dark for obvious dramatic reasons, they are the vest's that the ninjas wore in this years The Wolverine.

The curtains are closing, and I'm afraid this is the official end of the tour. It was pleasure showing you around and giving you an insight into our workshop but I'm afraid we have a lot of work to get on with. Thank you and Good Bye.

At least some one is pleased to be leaving the workshop.

Company Cribs: Siam Costumes Part 2

Your back already!? This time we shall venture into the second building and have a look at the workshop , a collection of rare authentic fabrics along with other hidden gems.

As you can see our workshop is split into two sides, as most of the time we will be working on several productions at once. This way it makes it a lot easier to oversee our work.

If you look closely you may notice the black and white striped fabric. Any ideas ,apart from prisoners and robbers who can be seen in a black and white striped clothes? No luck, how about that quirky fella Beetlejuice.

So that’s the ground floor where all the magic happens, let’s make our way upstairs and see what we can find.

I can see Michael in our second pattern cutting room , let’s go and have a look and see what he’s up to.

We finally found Sebastian, call off the search and rescue team and Michael Sloanwho I mentioned in a previous blog, I won’t hesitate to describe him as one of the best pattern cutters in America. Young grasshopper Sebastian is lucky to be able to have michael teach him few tips about pattern cutting. I best leave them to it.

This room is very popular among costume designers, in fact any one who works within the costume industry. It would be rude not to step inside.

We call this, the room of natural beauty, I’m joking its referred to the northern room. This authentic library of fabric has been stocking up for over the past 10-15 years from northern Thailand, Laos, Burma and Cambodia.

I once had the pleasure of going up to a small town in northern Thailand asDarryl was visiting some factories to buy some cotton, whilst he was looking through the mountains of fabric he told me when he goes to these factories he feels like a little kid in a sweet store, he also said that his wife hates him going up here as he can’t help but buy “too much” fabric although when he sees an unusual fabric he is already thinking of which type of film or stage production it could be used on.

Thats enough of that, up to the last floor of this building.

At the top of the stairs, you are greeted by draws and draws of files, here is an example of some. We don’t just store everything on the computers as its not practical at times when we need to refer back to styles, patterns etc. See if you can notice any previous productions.

Not one of the most popular rooms of the building, but never the less one of the most important. Here is another library this time of previous patterns from many different productions, this is useful as sometimes costumes will repeat itself especially suits, shirts, etc so it saves a lot of time rather than having to construct a new pattern each time.

And once again we have come to an end, for now. Next time we will be showing you around the 3rd and final building, where you will get to see our notorious stock room, our fabric sample room and others you will just have to wait and see, until next time.

Company Cribs: Siam Costumes Part 1

Today I shall be showing you around our Workshop/Office, Whether its the thousands upon thousands yards of fabric, the highly trained Siam little helpers or the memorable costumes, from Inglorious basterds to Captain America, we will be taking you behind the closed curtains

Come on in let me show you around the first of three of our buildings.

It is here where we hold an extensive collection of shirting, suiting, linen, lining, satin and interfacing. Who Knows when you will see them again perhaps on the big screen, on stage, in an exhibition, on a cruise ship or in a theme park. The possibilities are endless.

No wonder why some times designers feel spoilt for choice. Thats enough of the ground floor, follow me up the stairs.

It is here where you can find two of the pattern cutters, Arif and Rampai. Lets have quick sneak peak.

Arif's busy as usual constructing patterns, he's working on the latest order from Universal Studios Singapore. 

Rampai who has been taking under the wing of Arif for over a year now. Happy as always to see us.

As we make our way to the third floor, good to see Darryl's private security, Basil guarding the fort.

Few samples of our Boots and Shoes

Alex has been expecting us, He's one of our young Admin/Sales advisors. Sebastian is not at his desk but perhaps we will find him lurking around in one of the other buildings in a moment.

Now we come to the kings chambers, where Darryl is busy working, we can see he has some fabric samples laid out on his desk for another production in the pipeline, which i will keep you posted on. Best leave him to it. 

That is all for the first building. Next time I shall show you the workshop where The Siam's little helpers work, Our impressive Northen Thai, Burma, Laos, Cambodian cotton fabric collection as well a whole lot of costumes amongst other sneak peaks.