CDG honours Mad Max, Danish Girl, Beasts of No Nation

Best Costume Design is far and away the closest contest in this year's Academy Awards. A mere twelve days ago I was pontificating that Sandy Powell's stylistic abundance in Cinderella would just edge out her own subtle work in Carol, and now I have Jenny Beavan's iconic Mad Max: Fury Road designs (winner of the Costume Designers Guild Award for Fantasy) just leading the way ahead of Paco Delgado's opulent period wardrobe in The Danish Girl (winner for Period). Beasts of No Nation took the Contemporary prize, but of course was not Oscar nominated. Instead that slot went to the arguable Best Picture frontrunner The Revenant, for Jacqueline West's "trapper chic".

This feels like an honest-to-God five horse race, and thankfully, not one that I'm too personally invested in. If either Sandy or Jenny come out on top, great! Score one the best costumers of the year! And if they both lose, well, they've each won before so no loss. Paco and Jacqueline are terrific designers in their own right and either would make a welcome addition to the winners circle.

One Category at a Time: Costume Design

The design categories have me at a loss this year. Best Production Design and Costume Design (the latter the subject of today's shaky analysis) both feature the two craft giants going at it for the distinction of most Oscars, but I have a tough time envisioning them as winners. The Academy likes its costumes pretty and plentiful. So lets start with a look at the prettiest and most plentiful of the lot:

One Category at a Time: Costume Design

As it is in Best Production Design, having the most noticeable design elements is an essential factor to winning Best Costume Design, which is why  suspect the likely winner of Best Production Design is also primed to win here too. These two categories do often go hand in hand. Splits between two films nominated in both categories (like the one we saw last year) don't happen as often as one film winning both.