From The Boca Raton Museum of Art

Cut! Costume and the Cinema explores the intersection of fashion and film with forty-three extraordinary costumes worn by luminous film stars: Sandra Bullock, Johnnie Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman,Heath Ledger, Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith,  Kate Winslet, Renée Zellweger and others. Visitors to the Museum will be transported from Elizabethan England (Angelica Huston, Ever After) to 17th-century Virginia (Colin Farrell, The New World) to the 18th-century England of the aristocracy (Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess) to opulent 19th-century Paris, (Emmy Rossum, The Phantom of the Opera) to the story of Peter Pan (Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland), and the newly released adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, Sherlock Holmes) into the 20th century – to colonial Shanghai (Natasha Richardson, The White Countess) and Virginia Woolf's England (Vanessa Redgrave, Mrs. Dalloway) to the forests of Belarus in World War II (Daniel Craig, Defiance).

Cut! Costume and the Cinema reveals the integral role of fashion design in creating unforgettable screen characters. Costumes set the scene, providing information about where and when the drama is taking place, and introducing characters by giving clues about their status, age, class and wealth as well as their position in the story. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Venetian upper class 18th-century silk brocade coat of Heath Ledger (Casanova) versus the distressed leather jacket worn by Daniel Craig (Defiance) while hiding from the Nazis in World War II. Costumes created for period films must not only stand the test of time, but also the test of scrutiny. When a camera zooms in for a close-up every hand-created detail must look authentic and perfectly executed. This exhibition allows us to get closer to the stories portrayed on screen and to appreciate the quality of the costumes up close, sometimes only fleetingly glanced on the screen.

Cut! Costume and the Cinema is presented by Exhibits Development Group  in cooperation with Cosprop Ltd., London, England.