Dressmaker To "The Queen"

Her competition is fierce, including costumes from the splashy musical "Dreamgirls" and the flashy period piece "Marie Antoinette." It's little wonder that some were surprised at Consolata Boyle's inclusion in Oscars' Best Costumes category.

Instead of playing dress-up, part of Boyle's job was dressing down the film's fashion-savvy star, actress Helen Mirren, to portray the emphatically non-trendy Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen."

As sublime as Boyle's designs may be, they are undeniably subtle.

"Costume design is the very opposite of how fashion design is decorative," Boyle told The Associated Press during a visit to The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, site of the exhibit, "The Art of Motion Picture Costume Design." The show includes displays of costumes from all five of this year's Oscar-nominated designers.

2"It is all about character," Boyle said. "It's all based on the script. It's all about storytelling. It's like a secret language."

And, at times, it's more a science than an art. Boyle said it was particularly difficult to make costumes for Mirren that seamlessly matched those worn by the real Queen Elizabeth II in the documentary footage that is interspersed with the movie's action.

"There was a lot of research," Boyle explained. "Everything had to match perfectly, because we were cutting directly. . . the position of the brooch . . . the position of the hat, the position of the bag, the way she carried the bag, the silhouette had to be the silhouette of Elizabeth II, and that's what I think we achieved."

Boyle has already won many honors, including an Emmy award for her designs for the television movie "The Lion in Winter." But the Oscar, Boyle said, is something else completely.

3"Sometimes you're partly afraid to think about (being an Oscar nominee), that you might open to something that is utterly incredible and, what I try to do about the wonder of being nominated is to think through, if there was a next step, and that I would be continue being offered [work] as wonderful as I have in the past. I would hate that to change."

In addition to "The Queen," this year's nominees for Costume Design include "Curse of the Golden Flower," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Dreamgirls" and "Marie Antoinette." The 79th Annual Academy Awards airs Feb. 25, 2007.