How Is Alexander The Ultimate Costume

The film Alexander: The Ultimate Cut is the 2014 extended version of the 2004 film of the same title, following the life of Alexander the Great. Set in the 300’s B.C., the Classical Age of Greek costume, the film spans the conquests of the Macedonian ruler throughout Greece, Babylon, India, and various other locations. With this setting, time span, and with many characters, the costumes are numerous and diverse. The costume designer, Jenny Beavan, worked with art and textile historians to create the costumes for everything from servants to soldiers to kings.

Alexander is seen from age five until his death at 33. During his youngest years, Alexander wears short hair and a white, short, belted chiton clasped at both shoulders, typical of

As his time in Babylon continues, his costume becomes more patterned and gold, with highly jeweled borders and jewelry. His robes continue to be ornate and red becomes his signature color, with influences that seem of more modern Middle-eastern. In the cold mountains of India, Alexander continues his red color scheme with a fur-lined robe with a richly feathered neck. He wears a paler chlamys around his neck, like a modern scarf. When in India, he appears to be wearing a sheer, kalasiris-type garment with a large, geometrically patterned

At feasts, events, and around cities, Macedonian men wear a mix of doric chitons, ionic chitons, chitoniskos, exomis, and most visibly himations, variations of diplax, and chlamyses. For battle, a wider variety of cuirass styles are evident, as well as greaves and buskins. The headwear apparently popular in the period is rarely worn. While most men have short, curly hair and clean-shaven faces (except some soldiers and generals), Alexander’s lover and closest friend, Hephaestion, has long hair, occasionally braided. Hephaestion is almost always wearing kohl on his eyes, and he commonly wears brighter colors and thicker fabrics than most. His costumes are not typical, as most seem tailored and very modernly influenced. For women, ionic and doric chitons are also popular, but the most common is the Hellenistic chiton. As this style was not popular until Alexander’s death, but it is a style many people associate with classical Greek and Macedonian costume, it asserts the pressure of making Hollywood historical