“There are pieces that I used on that film that are still there today that I see hanging. Like notable pieces that made camera on principles. And I love that the pieces can live on and live for other designers in other ways. I mean, at first, I remember thinking it was an awkward thing, like, “Oh, I used that dress on Courtney Love in The People vs. Larry Flynt,” and now someone else can wear it. But then, it’s like a warm and fuzzy old friend that you can see there.” -Arianne Phillips
“I don’t remember the exact project that I was on the first time I walked into Palace Costume, but I do remember some of the first projects that I came in here to work on. One was, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Tina Turner’s life story. I just remember this being a place, like a big crayon box.” -Ruth E. Carter
“Carol was definitely a Palace job. Carol was, of course, one of those incredibly very low-budget films for the scale of it. For what we had to achieve. We actually had a fairly small core group of extras, and it was the same people that we kept redressing to be different people in different scenes. And I do remember that we couldn’t have done that without Palace actually giving us an extraordinarily good deal.” – Sandy Powell
“When I was working on La La Land, I wanted it to have a vintage-inspired feeling to it. Early in the movie, there are a few pieces that she wore where I didn’t mind that it was obvious that they were vintage because I think someone who—I did it myself—when you don’t have a lot of money, I used to go to vintage clothing stores and thrift stores and style myself.” -Mary Zophres
Emma Stone in a vintage dress sourced from Palace Costume for 2016’s La La LandPhoto: Dale Robinette/Black Label Media/Kobal/Shutterstock
“Palace has such a wide range of items, from the most fabulous evening coat, which I used on The Artist, or samples of men’s A-shirts, the tank undershirts from that period. So, of course, I just went there because I figured they have some early samples in different shapes. Whenever I want a prototype shape, I would probably go there first.
An A-shirt would be an example of “extraordinary ordinary clothes” because it’s really just a simple piece of underwear, but the width of the strap or the texture of the knit tells a story.” -Mark Bridges
Palace Costume: Inside Hollywood’s Best Kept Fashion Secret if out now.Photo: Chronicle Chroma