Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)

Costume Design by Michael Southgate

A loose and low budget adaptation of a H. P. Lovecraft's 'The Dreams in the Witch House', that swaps the original short story's premise for a more generic Satanic coven plot. The film's costume highlight is the dress Barbara Steele wears as the witch Lavinia, a large sleeved affair with faux-gemstones on the chest.

Completing the look is a feather-adorned ram horn headdress, with a little skull embedded on the middle. Michael Southgate's career is virtually non-existent past this film; one wonders how many other films they worked on, or if Steele's dress was the work of another designer?

THe only other costumes that were made for the film are not really much 'costumes' due to how much skin they show! Nita Lorraine wears a vinyl executioner pastiche - with nipple pasties! - as the 'woman with whip', and Nicholas Head wears nothing but bracelets and a horned helmet as the 'blacksmith'.

The swirly nipple pasties are hysterical.

Perhaps the horns are homage to deities such as Cernunnos and Pan?

The rest of the film's costumes are bought clothes for the present-day scenes, and period wardrobe stock for the cultists in the dream sequences. However, Christopher Lee's jacket was itself an example of wardrobe reuse - he had previously worn it in 1965's The Skull, and would later wear it again in The Wicker Man!