‘Barbie’ Pink, ‘Maestro’s Suits And Priscilla’s Dresses: The Best Style On Screen In 2023

2023 was a year of bold looks onscreen, with showy styles on TV and glitzy looks across film. This year, we were introduced to the bright pink world of Barbie, where we saw some of the iconic doll’s best looks come to life through Margot Robbie, but that wasn’t the only notable stylish release of the last 12 months— we also saw the Victorian Era turned on its head in Poor Things, witnessed Leonard Bernstein’s evolution in Maestro, and more.

Below, we’ve rounded up some of the very best looks from 2023 releases, highlighting ten films and shows with some of the very best costumes.

The selection features plenty of period pieces — Priscilla and Daisy Jones & the Six among them, but it also weaves in some more modern costuming, like the outfits seen in And Just Like That… and Past Lives, two releases both set in New York City that portray the city and its style in their own unique terms.

Any show or movie is made richer with complex, intentional costuming, and the ten releases below show just that. Read on to see our picks for the best style on screen this year, in no particular order.

• Poor Things

  Emma Stone wears some of the year’s most stunning outfits in Poor Things, where her character Bella is outfitted in ruffles, layers, bows and bold colors. The film’s costume designer, Holly Waddington, told Vogue that director Yorgos Lanthimos “didn’t want this to look like a sci-fi or period film,” so she put her own twist on Victorian fashion to create the fantastical styles of Poor Things — including what she describes as a condom coat, the latex layer Bella wears when she begins working in a brothel.

  “There’s a modernity to the costumes in this film, but everything comes from a historical source—all her bodices, for instance, are based on Victorian patterns,” she explained to the outlet.

  Where to watch poor things

  • Past Lives

    While Poor Things is a maximalist masterpiece, the wardrobe worn by Greta Lee in Past Lives is an understated foil. As Nora, Lee wears a mostly muted color palette of gray, black and white clothing, with delicate jewelry and simple accessories.

    Costume designer Katina Danabassis said that Nora’s casual style was key to her character, telling The Wrap of one specific scene, “She’s wearing a cream-colored button-down top and there’s a specific lack of care in her shirt, which was important. The cuffs being unbuttoned – that says, ‘I’m not sure how I want to project myself to this person but I’m not going to try too hard.’ We communicated a lot on how to convey that sort of vibe.”

    Where to watch past lives

• Maestro

  Bradley Cooper embodies the late composer Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, taking on the icon’s classic suits, turtlenecks and button downs. In one particular scene, he wears a memorable nautical striped shirt and handkerchief, swapping out his composer’s dress pants for a pair of jeans.

  While Cooper’s wardrobe as Bernstein helps tell his personal and professional trajectory, costume designer Mark Bridges told Harper’s Bazaar that Felicia Montealegre’s (Carey Mulligan) Chanel suit was one of his favorite looks in the film, and one he described as “a nice fortuitous collaboration with Chanel.”

  where to watch maestro

  • Priscilla

    Priscilla is a gorgeous film from start to finish, and Cailee Spaeny‘s costumes are a large part of that beauty. As the titular character, Spaeny wears some incredible ’60s fashion, with bows, lace and flowers making up her ultra-feminine wardrobe.

    Stacey Battat, the film’s costume designer, stressed the importance of accuracy in Priscilla and Elvis’s style to Entertainment Weekly. She told the outlet, “We had been very conscious of not spending so much money because we didn’t have a huge budget,” but also noted that the costumes were “so incredible,” despite the spending restrictions.

    “Every time [Jacob] had one of them on, everyone gasped,” she said of Jacob Elordi, Priscilla‘s Elvis. “They were like, ‘Oh my God, Elvis is in the room.'”

    Where to watch Priscilla

  • And Just Like That…

    No list of onscreen style would be complete without a mention of And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City spinoff series that continues to honor the original show’s dedication to style. In Season 2, Sarah Jessica Parker and crew continue to wear some of the boldest and most innovative looks on TV.

    While it’s hard to choose the best look of the season, perhaps the biggest standouts were from the bomb cyclone episode, when Carrie (Parker) wore a voluminous high fashion coat to weather the winter storm. Designer Molly Rogers told Variety of the Moncler x Valentino look, “We just thought the fans of the show would really enjoy the volume and the kiki of that. Where else could we have used that in the show?”

    Where to watch and just like that…

    • Our Flag Means Death

      Our Flag Means Death brings pirate fashion to the forefront with lots of leather, tattoos, bandanas and embroidery. Taika Waititi goes goth as the dark pirate Blackbeard, while Stede (Rhys Darby) begins to find his own pirate style, including a cursed suit described by costume designer Gypsy Taylor as “a dandy matador look.”

      Taylor told TV Guide that when Darby first tried on a version of the outfit, it “instantly embodied this character. He was flicking the tails and spinning around and he stood up straighter and his butt clenched… It was magic to watch.”

      Where to watch our flag means death

      • Asteroid City

        Asteroid City sent us on a trip back to the ’50s, where the characters of the film converge in a pastel, hazy desert, wearing a red lip and dark sunglasses in the case of Scarlett Johansson or sporting a cowboy illustrated jacket like Edward Norton. Costume designer Milena Canonero told Focus Features that inspiration from the playful looks came from “the sets, the locations, photos, movies, paintings,” plus director Wes Anderson.

         “Many of the designs come from the artistic desire to bring to the director something new and fresh and in harmony with his vision,” Canonero said.

        Where to watch Asteroid city

      • Daisy Jones & the Six

        Daisy Jones & the Six is a bohemian treasure trove of crochet, fringe and denim. Daisy herself (Riley Keough) gets some of the best looks, rocking fur-trimmed coats and tall cowboy boots. Costume designer Denise Wingate told Variety that the coats in particular were an important piece of Daisy’s character.

        “I saw a lot of stars like Brigitte Bardot, Patti Hansen or any of the Rolling Stone girls, they always had long Penny Lane style coats,” she said, referring to Kate Hudson’s Almost Famous costume. “Not everyone could carry it off, but pairing that with the shorts and knee-high boots looked so good on Riley.”

        Where to watch Daisy Jones & the six

        • The Righteous Gemstones

          While you would be hard pressed to find any look worn by the Gemstone siblings in the pages of Vogue, the deliciously tacky looks featured in The Righteous Gemstones manage to one-up most costumes on TV in their outrageousness. From cheetah and sequins to leather and flashy pendants, this show tries it all.

          Costume designer Christina Flannery told Vanity Fair, “The keyword for this show is ‘stunted,’” adding that she enjoyed “heavily” costuming the new characters of Season 3.

          “It was so fun for me to work with a reality-based megachurch, but then when we have characters like Keefe or BJ or Kelvin—any of them, really—all of them have these unique takes on who they are, and you see it in their clothing. It was just so fun,” she said.

          Where to watch The righteous Gemstones

          • Barbie

            Of course, Barbie makes the cut, too. The film’s cheery pink color palette was the perfect fit for this summer blockbuster, which not only featured some classic Barbie doll costumes, but also showed us a whole new side of Ken.

            Jacqueline Durran, Barbie‘s costume designer, told The Hollywood Reporter that she drew inspiration from the titular doll to make a “high fashion Barbie.”

            “I decided that I wanted to tie it very closely to the history of Mattel and to reference past Barbie costumes and tie it together with memories people have of Barbies over time,” she said. “That was my way in and then I built the the ideas and the interpretations from that starting point.”

            Where to watch barbie