- Born
- Birth nameSandra Jane Powell
- Londoner, Sandy, studied at St Martins School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design where she specialised in theatre design, She started her professional career in fringe with the National Theatre working on numerous productions including Orders of Obedience and Rococo, She went on to design sets and costumes for productions of Lumiere and Son, Bright Side and Culture Vulture, As a student and one of the leading lights of the international theatre scene she most admired was Lindsay Kemp, the gifted director, designer and performer, On impulse she spoke to him on the phone and said how much she wanted to work with him, After seeing samples of her work he asked her to join him in Milan as costume designer for his theatre company, During her 3 year spell with him she worked on Nijinsky which was a study of the start and madness of the great Russian dancer, She also designed the costumes for The Big Parade, a tragic- comic homage to the silent screen, and the stage and screen versions of A Midsummer Nights Dream, In 1985 she rapidly established herself in the world of video working on many pop promos with director Derek Jarman and with him on his film Caravaggio, and Zenith's For Queen and Country- IMDb mini biography by: Tonyman 5
- Sandy Powell is a British costume designer with a career spanning over four decades. She designed costumes for films like Shakespeare in Love, The Aviator, The Young Victoria, and The Favourite, earning three Academy Awards and three BAFTA Awards. Powell received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2023 and was appointed CBE in 2025 for her contributions to costume design. Her work blends historical accuracy with emotional storytelling.- IMDb mini biography by: unknown
- RelativesAnthony Powell(Cousin)
- Frequently works with Todd Haynes and Martin Scorsese since she served as costume designer for Haynes's 5th film: Velvet Goldmine (1998), and for Scorsese's 19th film: Gangs of New York (2002).
- As of 2024, she has contributed with the costume design of nine films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Crying Game (1992), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Gangs of New York (2002), Aviator (2004), Les Infiltrés (2006), Hugo Cabret (2011), Le Loup de Wall Street (2013), La Favorite (2018), and The Irishman (2019). Of those, Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Les Infiltrés (2006) are winners in the category.
- Attended the Central School of Arts and Design, where she studied theater design.
- Learn how to sew from her mother at an early age.
- She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2011 Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to costume design and the film industry.
- Attended and graduated from Syderham High School in London, England.
- [on persuading director Iain Softley to change the time of the setting from 1902 to 1910 for Les ailes de la colombe (1997)] "And besides, every Merchant-Ivory film is set in 1902, and I wanted the costumes to look different."
- Unless of course the film requires it, I'm not interested in an exact replica of the period. I look at the period, how it should be, how it could be, and then I do my own version. [Time, 22 Feb, 1999]
- "It was different. Tom Cruise was lovely to me, but there were many discussions about his height in relation to Brad Pitt's. There are always vanity concerns" [on working on Entretien avec un vampire (1994)].
- [on inventing her own design for the historical drama Rob Roy (1995)] It was very difficult to find an original tartan dating back to the period that the director liked the looks of, and it was easier to make one up so it wouldn't be wrong. In that day and age, tartans didn't exist as we know them. The tartans were earthy and designs were simple. [New York Times, 21 May 1995]
- Sandy's great gift is her ability to make historical costumes look contemporary. She manages to be both true to the period and modern. -- Harvey Weinstein
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