Milena Canonero

Canonero was born in Turin, Italy. She attended university in Genoa, studying fashion, period design, and art history before moving to England in the late 1960s.^[1][2] She designed for friends' London boutiques and began assisting in commercials, meeting many filmmakers along the way.^[3] By chance, Canonero was also invited to watch Stanley Kubrick shoot parts of the landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and the director asked her to collaborate with him on his next feature film.^[3]

Canonero received her first major screen credits for designing costumes for Kubrick's dystopian classic A Clockwork Orange (1971), based on Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name. She created an instantly recognizable character's wardrobe that perfectly captures the film's discourse on class, money, and power through provoking aesthetics, which has since become an enduring inspiration for fashion icons and designers.^[4] Kubrick and Canonero continued their collaboration on the epic period drama Barry Lyndon (1975), based on the 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray about social ladder in Georgian era Britain. She and Swedish costume designer Ulla-Britt Söderlund examined original 18th-century attire at London's Victoria and Albert Museum and copied patterns from the collection to produce authentic-looking film garments. In their designs, the pair also drew inspiration from the period-defining art, including portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, as well as paintings by Jean Siméon Chardin and William Hogarth, among others. They also sourced vintage fabrics, laces, and clothing from auction houses and private collections. By combining crafted film pieces with original clothing, the designers achieved unrivaled for the period drama authenticity sought by the director.^[1] Given the grand scale of production, the biggest challenge, however, was Kubrick's innovative decision to lens the film using only daylight or faint, flickering candlelight. Taking that into account, the costumes had to stand out noticeably both in shape and texture.^[2] Canonero and Söderlund won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for their exceptional work.^[3] At one point, George Lucas approached her to design costumes for his 1977 landmark space opera Star Wars, an offer she eventually turned down while later considered it to be the biggest lost opportunity of her career.^[3] Canonero worked with Kubrick once again on the cult psychological horror The Shining (1980), based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. She won her second Academy Award for another collaboration with director Hugh Hudson, with whom she previously worked on the short film back in the early 1970s. This time they reunited on his iconic sports drama Chariots of Fire (1981), the true story of two British athletes in the 1924 Olympics. She superbly interpreted the 1920s English tweeds, blazers, and college garb to the extent of inspiring 1980s fashion trends; such great success led to an offer for Canonero to create a clothing line for men's-wear manufacturer Norman Hilton, for which she received a special Coty Award.^[3]

Canonero’s next major film was Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), based on Danish author Karen Blixen's autobiographical memoir of the same name about her decade-long experiences in colonial Kenya starting just before the outbreak of World War I. Canonero faced a formidable challenge when tasked in a strict three-month term to research, design, and produce hundreds of costumes appropriate for a vast ensemble of characters that includes African natives, white hunters, and European nobility. It took her on an intense journey everywhere, from the New York Public Library to the various museums and costume houses across England and Italy, and from the Blixen’s home in Denmark to Africa, where she met anthropologist Richard Leakey, who consulted her on less known aspects of African fashion in the 1910s, especially those regarding the indigenous groups.^[5][6]

Beside her well-established screen career, Canonero is known for creating costumes for stage. She frequently collaborated with director Otto Schenk on his numerous opera productions. Those include Il trittico (Vienna State Opera, 1979), As You Like It (Salzburg Festival, 1980), Die Fledermaus (Vienna State Opera, 1980), Andrea Chénier (Vienna State Opera, 1981), and Arabella (Metropolitan Opera, 1983). Canonero provided the costumes and set design for Roman Polanski's 1999 production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus at Milan's Teatro Manzoni.^[7] She also worked with director Luc Bondy on such productions as Tosca (Metropolitan Opera, 2009) and Helena (Burgtheater, 2010).

On television, Canonero designed costumes for crime drama series Miami Vice in the 1980s.^[8]

In 2001, Canonero received the Career Achievement Award in Film from the Costume Designers Guild.^[9] She won her third Oscar for Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006).^[10]

Canonero received her fourth Academy Award for The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), directed by Wes Anderson. This marked her third collaboration with the director, as they had previously worked together on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007).^[11]

In 2020, Canonero designed costumes for 200 singers inspired by styles from the 15th century to 1950 for the backdrop of the Louis Vuitton automn-winter 2020 runway.^[12]

Canonero is married to actor Marshall Bell.^[13] As of 2025^[update], Canonero is based out of Rome, Italy.^[14]

Major associations

Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

Miscellaneous awards

• Italy - Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic on 21 December 2015.^[66]