Costume Designers Look to Swarovski for Luster

When Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell wanted the dreamy, cloudlike blue ballgown that actress Lily James wears in this year’s “Cinderella” to appear as if it were “lit from within,” she looked to Swarovski, dotting James’ dress with hundreds of tiny Swarovski crystals. Powell follows in a storied tradition for using Swarovski crystals to add luster on film that started with Marlene Dietrich’s costume in the 1932 film “Blonde Venus” and led to Swarovski fashioning Audrey Hepburn’s tiara in 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and Marilyn Monroe’s jewelry in the 1953 film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” “The emergence of the silver screen came and everything that was meant to be a diamond was actually a Swarovski crystal,” noted Nadja Swarovksi. And according to Powell, that maxim holds true today. “Any time we’ve got sparkle, it’s Swarovski sparkle,” said Powell, who has worked with the house’s crystals on films such as “Shakespeare in Love,” “Young Victoria” and Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella,” her biggest collaboration with the firm to date. “The fact that it was Cinderella and a fairy tale — it was obvious that it was going to be full of crystal and sparkle,” said Powell, noting that she takes a nuanced approach to the material. “I like to

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