Sandy Powell, costume designer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sandy Powell won her first Academy Award for dressing Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, and has since won two more Oscars - along with a further dozen nominations - and three BAFTAs. Her credits range from Gangs of New York for Martin Scorsese to Mary Poppins Returns for Disney, and she's worked with many of the biggest current screen stars, including Leonardo di Caprio, Cate Blanchett and Al Pacino.

Sandy was born in south London and completed an art foundation course at St Martin’s School of Art. In 1981 she got her first job designing costumes for the choreographer Lindsay Kemp’s show Nijinsky at La Scala in Milan. She later worked for the director Derek Jarman on his film Caravaggio and continued to collaborate with him until his death in 1994. She has also enjoyed long working relationships with Martin Scorsese and Todd Haynes.

Sandy has won acclaim for her designs on films with historical settings, including The Wings of the Dove, The Young Victoria and The Favourite starring Olivia Colman, as well as the flamboyant glam rock world of Velvet Goldmine and the fairy-tale fantasy of Cinderella, starring Lily James. In 2011 she was awarded an OBE for services for the film industry and in 2023 she became the first costume designer to receive a BAFTA Fellowship.

DISC ONE: Jeepster - T Rex DISC TWO: Adagietto, Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor. Composed by Gustav Mahler and performed by Orchestre de l'Académie de Santa Cécilia and conducted by Franco Mannino DISC THREE: Life on Mars? - David Bowie DISC FOUR: La Vie en Rose - Alan Dunn DISC FIVE: I’ll Never Fall in Love Again - Bobbi Gentry DISC SIX: Satellite of Love - Lou Reed DISC SEVEN: Where Love Lives (Come On In) - Alison Limerick DISC EIGHT: I Left My Heart in San Francisco - Tony Bennett

BOOK CHOICE: Josef Koudelka: Gypsies LUXURY ITEM: A lemon tree CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Life on Mars? - David Bowie

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.2	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know I also know that comedy is really
0:24.4	subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer
0:29.6	from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you
0:36.2	fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:41.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:45.0	Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Disks podcast.
0:49.0	Every week I ask my guest to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were
0:54.6	cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original
1:00.6	broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My cat My castaway this week is Sandy Powell. She's one of the most celebrated costume designers in the film business with three Academy Awards to her name. Her looks bring stories to life.
1:35.0	She created Shakespeare in love sumptuous realism,
1:38.0	gangs of New York's murderous dandies,
1:41.0	and brought Mary Poppins into a new century. She grew up in South London
1:45.8	where her father entertained her with tales of the characters who frequented the
1:49.6	casino where he worked and her mother taught her to soul.
1:53.0	She's dressed everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio to Judy Dench
1:56.5	and worked closely with some of modern cinema's greatest auteurs.
2:00.0	Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Martin Scorsese have all trusted her to articulate their
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -368 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.