Mood a la mode

AS Britain’s monarch in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” Cate Blanchett dons a series of set-piece gowns, elaborate constructions both wasp-waisted and voluminous, topped by headpieces of unsurpassed intricacy. But it’s when the Virgin Queen steps out of the finery -- and the castle -- and lets down her hair that the film, and costume designer Alexandra Byrne, make their boldest impression. With her titian tresses flowing free, Elizabeth is encased in a suit of armor -- bespoke armor, to be sure, its silver sheen a fine complement to her horse’s mane.

Byrne’s work, like that of all of 2008’s Oscar-nominated costume designers, strikes a balance between period detail and movie artifice. These artists help to create singular worlds, defined by character. For the central figures of “The Golden Age,” “Atonement,” “La Vie en Rose” and “Sweeney Todd,” clothes do make the person, establishing her surroundings while setting her apart from them.

The exception is the Beatles opera “Across the Universe,” in which Albert Wolsky infuses his creations with 1960s counterculture romanticism, fostering a sense of collective spirit at the opposite end of the spectrum from Elizabeth’s battle gear.

But not every larger-than-life character requires an extravagant wardrobe. Dressing Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose,” the posthumously nominated Marit Allen understood that the singer’s outsized talent and personality required no embellishment. And, delving into the art of murder in “Sweeney Todd,” Colleen Atwood chose a monochromatic palette suffused with the industrial grime of mid-Victorian London.

As for the silk gown Jacqueline Durran created for Keira Knightley for a pivotal scene in “Atonement,” it’s become a star in its own right. A dress to die for indeed.

-- Sheri Linden