Monica Howe

Howe's first film costume design project was Bugsy Malone, a musical about American gangsters featuring only child actors, directed by Alan Parker.{{Cite web |title=British Council Film: Bugsy Malone |url=http://film-directory.britishcouncil.org/bugsy-malone |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=film-directory.britishcouncil.org}} The costumes for Bugsy Malone were nominated for a BAFTA Best Costume Design award,{{Cite book |last=Leese |first=Elizabeth |title=Costume design in the movies: an illustrated guide to the work of 157 great designers |date=1991 |publisher=Dover Publ |isbn=978-0-486-26548-3 |location=New York}} and several were later acquired by the BFI for the Museum of the Moving Image on the South Bank in London.

The actors in the film had an average of twelve, which gave an added complexity to the costume design. Press at the time recorded, "Howe and her army of helpers had to supply nearly 500 cut-down but absolutely authentic 1920s costumes".{{Cite news |date=9 September 1976 |title=No Kids Stuff for Bugsy |work=Runcorn Weekly News |pages=12}} Despite the ages of the performers, the filmmakers wanted to make the film as "uncompromised as possible - the cars, the spurge-guns, the clothes", according to Executive Producer David Puttnam.{{Cite web |title=Paramount Presents: BUGSY MALONE {{!}} Le Cinema Paradiso Blu-Ray reviews and DVD reviews |url=https://lecinemaparadiso.co.uk/review/paramount-presents-bugsy-malone |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=lecinemaparadiso.co.uk}} Bespoke costume for principal cast were made by theatrical costumiers Wallace & McMurray.{{Citation |last1=Howe |first1=Monica |title=Bugsy Malone |date=c. 1976 |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1314787/bugsy-malone-costume-howe-monica/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |last2=Wallace & McMurray}}

For the film Breaking Glass (1980), Monica Howe worked with co-designer Lorna Hillyard to dress actor Hazel O'Connor as Kate, a pop star in the dystopian late 1970s music industry. The film historian Claire Monk has observed that the designers, "excel in providing Kate with a succession of on- and off-stage looks which draw credibly on new wave trends (from Gary Numan to Blondie) while expressing her transformation to glossy product".{{Cite book |title=British women's cinema |date=2010 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-203-87200-0 |editor-last=Bell |editor-first=Melanie |series=British popular cinema |location=London New York |pages=147 |editor-last2=Williams |editor-first2=Melanie}}

The following year, Howe designed costumes for The BBC television adaptation of D H Lawrence's The Trespasser (1981). A decade later, she costumed another literary adaption, E M Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), starring Helena Bonham Carter and Helen Mirren.{{Cite web |last=Kendra |date=1991-05-07 |title=Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) short review |url=https://frockflicks.com/where-angels-fear-to-tread-1991-short-review/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=Frock Flicks |language=en-US}}

In 1983, Howe did the costumes for ‘Tales Out of School’, a series of four films about contemporary England, education and unemployment, written for television by David Leland, and shown on ITV: The Birth of a Nation (directed by Mike Newell); Flying into the Wind;{{Cite book |last=Leland |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/flyingintowind0000lela/mode/2up?q=%22Monica+Howe%22 |title=Flying into the wind |date=1985 |publisher=Cambridge : Cambridge University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-521-31373-5}} RHINO; and Made in Britain. In the last of the four, Howe dressed actor Tim Roth in his breakout role as a young skinhead.{{Cite book |last=Leland |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/madeinbritain0000lela/mode/2up?q=%22Monica+Howe%22 |title=Made in Britain |date=1986 |publisher=Cambridge : Cambridge University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-521-31371-1}}

Monica Howe had a long-standing collaboration with the director Terence Davies. Her first project with Davies was designing costumes for Distant Voices, Still Lives, an acclaimed period film that is a "highly stylised" vision of the 1950s.{{Cite book |last=Farley |first=Paul |title=Distant voices, still lives |date=2006 |publisher=British Film Institute |others=British Film Institute |isbn=978-1-83871-535-9 |series=BFI modern classics |location=London}}{{Cite book |title=The movie guide: a comprehensive, alphabetical listing og the most important films ever made |date=1992 |publisher=Perigee Book |isbn=978-0-399-51780-8 |editor-last=Monaco |editor-first=James |location=New York, NY}} Later collaborations with the director included The Long Day Closes; The Neon Bible and The House of Mirth. Davies's biographer, Monica Everett, explained that Monica Howe was chosen for her considerable skill and experience, and also the ‘affinities’ with Davies, having grown up around the same time.{{Cite book |last=Everett |first=Wendy |title=Terence Davies: British Film Makers |date=2004 |publisher=Manchester Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-7190-6062-5 |edition= |location=Manchester |pages=24}} Davies himself described Howe as "a costume designer of genius".{{Cite book |last=Farley |first=Paul |title=Distant voices, still lives |date=2006 |publisher=British Film Institute |others=British Film Institute |isbn=978-1-83871-535-9 |series=BFI modern classics |location=London |pages=35}}

Howe's final film credit was for The House of Mirth (2000), the Terence Davies-directed adaptation of Edith Wharton’s story of hypocrisy and predatory practices in Old New York. Howe's costumes achieved widespread acclaim from contemporary critics. The Denver Post wrote: "Wearing costume designer Monica Howe's gorgeously outsized hats (you could sit in one!) and tapered outfits, [actor Gillian] Anderson looks as if she's an elegant artwork".{{Cite web |title=Denver Entertainment/The Scene: The Denver Post |url=https://extras.denverpost.com/scene/mirth0126.htm |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=extras.denverpost.com}} And they have remained popular among fans of period costuming: "mournful veils, gauzy flounces, and apparitions of blood-red eveningwear indicate a more theatrical understanding of social mores",{{Cite web |title=The Best Costumes of 2000 - Blog - The Film Experience |url=http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2021/5/23/the-best-costumes-of-2000.html |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=thefilmexperience.net |language=en}} or simply described as "gorgeous".{{Cite web |last=Kendra |date=2000-05-07 |title=The House of Mirth (2000) short review |url=https://frockflicks.com/the-house-of-mirth-2000-short-review/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=Frock Flicks |language=en-US}} In academic critique, Howe's costumes have been described as a "remarkable" translation of historic fashion to film.{{Cite book |last=Masiola |first=Rosanna |title=Fashion Narrative and Translation: Is Vanity Fair? |date=2023 |publisher=Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG |isbn=978-1-7936-4730-6 |location=Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar |pages=208}}

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Category:British costume designers

Category:British women costume designers

Category:English costume designers

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)