FASHION : In Full Gloom

THE MOVIE: “The Addams Family.”

THE SCRIPT: A new twist on the weird family created by cartoonist Charles Addams and later immortalized on television. In this revisitation, family members Gomez Addams (Raul Julia), his wife Morticia (Anjelica Huston, pictured), daughter Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and son Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) welcome long-lost Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) back to the fold.

THE LOOK: Gloomy eccentric. If clothes, like old Gothic mansions, creaked, these would be heard loud and clear. (Indeed, Wednesday’s prim schoolgirl dress is made from a “cracked” print.) Fabrics and details are rich and textured, but at the same time aged with costume designer’s trickery, including over-painting, over-dyeing, mixing antique fabrics with new, and slipping in occasional inserts of cobweb lace.

The Addams’ aristocratic funereal style is as timeless as a Chanel suit. It could as easily have existed in the 18th Century as in the 20th. Costume designer Ruth Myers achieves this by taking cues from the original New Yorker cartoons and then bravely mixing styles and periods in such a way that it’s impossible to date them. This is especially true for Gomez, who is the family’s true fashion plate, alternating between a garish awning-striped suit (“The pin-stripe from hell,” says Myers), Victorian crushed-velvet smoking jackets in eggplant tones and campy Edwardian knickers worn with argyle socks.

Morticia’s trademark flounced, floor-length gowns are tight- tight-tight and appropriately grand, laced with ragged tendrils made from bias-cut Fortuny-pleated chiffon. They look like Bill Blass designs gone haywire. In fact, Huston actually wears eight all-black variations of the same style, some with jet beads, others sewn from antique brocades. Sadly, since the film is so dimly lit, these details are lost, and all the dresses seem to blur into one or two.

The ball sequence is a real fashion fantasy, operatic and luxuriant in shades of mauve, dark red and metallic. One standout dancer wears a shredded copper chiffon gown; another what Myers calls a “Hamlet-esque tutu.” A pair of Siamese twins show up in a dress out of a “Gone With the Wind” nightmare.

THE SOURCES: All the clothes were custom-made. Some antique fabrics were purchased at Repeat Performance in Los Angeles, and others came from Myers’ own collection.

THE PAYOFF: A sense of decaying grandeur--tactile, regal and morbid--is displayed by the entire brood. Black is basic, even for the kids.