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Here's why Irish costume designer Consolata Boyle deserves to take home that Oscar

You’ve seen her designs more than you might imagine.

THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS were announced this afternoon, and the Irish have a few reasons to celebrate.

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All eyes were on Ruth Negga, who bagged a nomination for Best Actress. But she isn’t the only Irish woman representing us.

Dublin-born former UCD student Consolata Boyle received her second nomination for her costume design work on Florence Foster Jenkins.

She was previously nominated for her work on The Queen in 2007, starring Helen Mirren

Granny chic at its best.

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Consolata is known for her quirky, eccentric, and even bizarre creations. The Queen director Stephen Frears regularly works with her, telling The Telegraph:

I barely need to speak to her as I know what she’s doing is going to be dazzling. I’ve worked with her for 25 years, so I’m very lucky.

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Her nomination this year is for Florence Foster Jenkins, a film they both worked on together, starring Meryl Streep.

She told The Telegraph:

Jenkins’ extraordinary eccentricities and her coterie were a very particular thing, she lived and thrived in a very sealed off world. Her costumes were like her childhood dressing-up outfits, so everything was in very childish colours.

Florence Foster Jenkins, of course, was known as ’the least gifted chanteuse to ever sell out Carnegie Hall’, so she had plenty of inspiration from the woman herself.

It’s not the first time she dressed Meryl, either.

Boyle also made the costumes for Streep’s Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady

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It was pitch perfect

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But what else is she responsible for?

A lot.

Like the glamorous Chéri, starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Lea de Lonval, an aging courtesan who has an affair with a nineteen-year-old.

Well, she looked fabulous doing it

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Boyle told Vogue back in

The costumes echoed the sets completely and vice versa.
All of Léa’s dresses are spun from the finest hand-painted silks, satins, and French lace, accentuating her femininity.

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She also worked with Frears again on Philomena

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And her fabulous War World War I era outfits can be seen in Testament of Youth

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A costume assistant on the movie praised her ‘meticulous’ attention to detail, as she poured over pattern books from the 1910s and searched vintage shops far and wide.

Boyle trained in set and costume design at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and started off with old favourites Into the West

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The Snapper

Yeah, she picked all those funky jumpers.

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She even dressed The Van and Angela’s Ashes.

Fingers crossed she’ll snap up her first Oscar on February 26th.

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Author
Nicola Byrne
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