Jenny Beavan wins costume Oscar for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’

“Mad Max: Fury Road”

Jenny Beavan

“Mad Max: Fury Road’s” Oscar for costume design was a triumph of wild imagination over tradition. The list of previous winners is dominated by period films; since the Costume Designers Guild had split its feature awards into three categories for contemporary, period and fantasy film in 2005, only one guild fantasy winner had ever claimed the Oscar — “Alice in Wonderland” (2010).

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This time, the academy chose Jenny Beavan’s riot of post-apocalyptic steam punk, transforming wasteland denizens into death machines or some new desert species whose markings were designed to terrify prey. Perhaps Beavan’s pedigree helped the academy make the call: She has had nine previous nominations, all for period pieces, including a win for “A Room With a View.”