STAGE STYLE / BETTY GOODWIN : Taking a Shine to Theater

The Musical: “Sunset Boulevard.”

The Setup: Composer-producer Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Trevor Nunn transfer Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 movie to the stage, with Glenn Close (pictured) as Norma Desmond, an over-the-hill Hollywood star, and Alan Campbell (pictured) as unlucky screenwriter Joe Gillis.

The Costume Designer: Anthony Powell, a set and costume designer for theater, opera and film. The British designer has won three Oscars (“Death on the Nile,” “Travels With My Aunt” and “Tess”) and a Tony (“School for Scandal”). His other film work includes “Hook,” “Pirates,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “Papillon” and “Nicholas and Alexandra.”

Inspiration: Edith Head’s original movie costumes were not a factor, Powell said. “I saw the movie many years earlier and didn’t remember anything specifically except Norma Desmond’s funny cigarette holder.”

The designer said he “looked and looked and looked and read and read and read,” poring over hundreds of books on Hollywood, period fashion magazines and the clothing collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Look: The story is set in 1949, but Norma is fashionably fossilized in the ‘20s and ‘30s, her prime decades. While movie fans may remember a chic but eccentric Norma who roamed her mansion in dark glasses and black hostess dresses trimmed in leopard, theater-goers will find her swathed in beads, rhinestones, lame, fur and feathers.

Norma’s turbans, feathered hats and clunky jewels (including two copies of original “Sunset” star Gloria Swanson’s diamond bracelets plus reproductions of several Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels items) sharply contrast with script girl Betty Schaefer’s (Judy Kuhn) Peter Pan-collar blouses and pleated skirts.

Gillis’ big fashion moment comes when he puts on Norma’s gift of a snappy, bone-colored overcoat, made of cashmere specially woven for the show.

Hit: For sheer razzle-dazzle, there’s nothing quite like the megawattage of a few of Norma’s beaded numbers. In one dramatic scene, she wears a black lame halter gown under a glimmering tabard embroidered with silver beads, sequins, pearls and rhinestones. It’s topped off with a metallic gauze cape appliqued to resemble butterfly wings.

Miss: One or two of Norma’s glitzy get-ups go over the top, particularly a leopard gown with a gargantuan skirt that looks like an outtake from “Gone Wind the Wind.”

Trivia: Norma’s beaded champagne pajamas and matching coat with white fox cuffs is composed of millions of beads, each sewn on by hand.

Noted: “I read somewhere once that psychologists say women drawn to wearing animal prints tend to be promiscuous or very highly sexed,” Powell says, explaining Norma’s fondness for leopard and zebra.

Quoted: “The difference between doing costumes for movies and theater,” Powell explains, “is that in movies, the most important thing is what happens around the face, things like interesting collars, necklines and hats. In the theater, all the interest needs to drop away from the face and you have to think in terms of overall effect. Gloria Swanson wears a silver scarf and sequins on her skin in the final scene of the movie. That wouldn’t be enough in the theater for Row V.”

Sources: Thirteen costume houses including Martin Adams in London, which made Norma’s jewels; Pompeii in Rome for shoes; Barbara Matera in New York for Norma’s dresses, suits and gowns.