It has been reported that Keira Knightley is to play Eliza Doolittle in a yet to be decided upon stage or film version of My Fair Lady. Now I don’t know about you but it would take some costumier to surpass the absolutely superb costumes that Cecil Beaton designed for Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady (for which he won an Oscar for). If this new version does come to fruition, I hope they take the the costuming as seriously as they did for the original, for it is an incredibly hard legacy to live up to. A little stat: Beaton designed 1,086 costumes with 300 just for the Ascot scene alone. It took 90 seamstresses, drapers, milliners, and sewers to complete.
And a lovely sketch by Cecil Beaton of that infamous Ascot outfit….
(All pics from Audrey.Hepburn.Free.Fr)
But don’t forget that stage and film costumes are totally different animals. Those costumes are great, but they’re pretty 60s.