Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Söderlund shared the Academy Award for Costume Design for Barry Lyndon. Their work should be understood as a collective process of research and execution.
A Shared Credit Worth Preserving
The Academy awarded the Costume Design Oscar for Barry Lyndon to Ulla-Britt Söderlund and Milena Canonero. The official record establishes shared responsibility, which should not be reduced to a single name for editorial convenience. Designing clothes for a historical film requires decisions about silhouette, color, materials, use on screen, and continuity between scenes. The collaboration may also involve workshop staff, fitting specialists, and experts whose contributions are not always apparent from a general credit.
The award confirms institutional recognition of the result, but on its own it does not document which person designed each garment. Assigning specific responsibility would require signed drawings, production orders, interviews, or wardrobe records. The film lets us observe how the clothes look, but it cannot automatically reconstruct the entire process that produced them. The study of the uniforms focuses on their narrative function; this page is about preparation and professional attribution.
Preparing a historical costume begins with choosing references. A portrait can provide information about silhouette, color, and accessories, but not necessarily about how a garment was constructed on the inside. The production must turn that image into an item an actor can wear through long workdays. Costume design for film combines historical observation with practical adaptation; the two dimensions are not mutually exclusive.
Fittings with performers make it possible to adjust proportions that change with movement and camera distance. A sleeve may look right in a fixed pose but restrict physical action; a skirt may affect how someone sits or turns. The film shows the result of these decisions, although without documentation it cannot reveal how many fittings took place or which workshops were involved.
From References to the Costume on Screen
Historical research could draw on portraits, engravings, and surviving garments as references for creating an 18th-century look. But translating an image into a wearable costume requires solving problems beyond those of documentation: an actor must be able to walk, sit, dance, or take part in a fight. A skirt’s volume, a jacket’s fit, and the arrangement of accessories all affect both the performance and the composition of the shot.
Costume fittings make it possible to check proportions and how the clothes work with makeup and hair. A garment that works in a reference photograph may behave differently under the film’s lighting and in motion. The study of character design examines that coordination through the body. We should not assume that every visible fabric or seam exactly reproduces a historical process; film production selects and adapts solutions to serve a narrative purpose.
Costumes also interact with the frame. In a wide composition, silhouettes help distinguish figures and positions; in a close-up, a collar or accessory can change the visual relationship with the face. Coordination with cinematography and production design influences how colors and textures are perceived. That relationship cannot be attributed to one person without evidence, but it can be described in the finished image.
Barry’s changing circumstances call for clothes that signal different affiliations. His passage through armies and aristocratic circles can be recognized before the narrator explains each stage. This narrative function of costume relies on social codes the audience can understand, though the accuracy of any particular detail must be verified separately.
Costume, Continuity, and the Cast
Barry’s passage through different groups requires the clothes to communicate changes in affiliation. The production also needs to maintain a character’s continuity between scenes filmed on different days. A costume may need duplicates, alterations, or modifications that are not visible onscreen. Such processes are common in production, but their specific scope must be documented before they are attributed to Barry Lyndon.
Marisa Berenson’s performance draws on poses and gestures that interact with Lady Lyndon’s costumes. The study of her performance makes it possible to observe that relationship without reducing it to a gallery of dresses. Canonero and Söderlund’s work deserves to be analyzed as design applied to bodies, spaces, and actions. Recognizing their shared authorship keeps the film’s visual prestige from obscuring how the work was actually organized.
Canonero and Söderlund’s shared credit should also be preserved when studying the process. A credit naming both does not allow us to divide the work by character, garment, or scene without additional sources. Exhibition catalogs and archival materials may identify specific designs, but a general description is not the same as having examined every original sketch or piece.
The value of the costumes lies in their relationship to the story. A garment can convey wealth, discipline, or belonging, but its function changes when the character wears it in a different situation. Research into the design becomes more precise when it connects references, execution, and use on screen, rather than turning recognition of the film into an undocumented claim about every garment-making technique.
View all articles in Barry Lyndon: Characters, Scenes, and the Construction of the 18th Century