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Wednesday, 5 June 2024

The Night Porter (1974)

Costume Design by Piero Tosi


One wonders how much director Liliana Cavani was inspired by Luchino Visconti's The Damned when setting out to make The Night Porter (aka Il portiere di notte) - not only do both films star Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, but both share Piero Tosi as costume designer. And just like in The Damned, Tosi had the costumes fabricated at the Tirelli Costumi costume house.

Rampling stars as Lucia, a former concentration camp inmate who Bogarde's former SS officer had a fling with; I can't remember when Rampling wears this dress in the film, but her flashback dress is a white design with lace panelling and shoulders. The SS uniforms in the flashback sequences, such as the one worn by Dirk Bogarde in the below image, were possibly the same ones supplied by Tirelli for The Damned.

(And before you ask, no, I'm not including Rampling's infamous Nazi uniform fetish look - it doesn't count anyway as it was probably just cobbled from Tirelli's wardrobe stock, due to its very brief appearance in the film).

In the present day of Night Porter's story, Rampling first appears wearing this gorgeous sparkly black dress with with a chiffon shawl worn over it - this dress is only worn very briefly in the film, no less.
Getting even less screentime is this silvery dress and shawl Rampling wears when watching an opera performance; this photo from an Italian film costume exhibition is far better a shot of it than what you'd get in the movie itself, as Rampling wears it during extreme close-up shots as she's sitting.
Isa Miranda stars as the Countess Stein, whose most notable costume is this lovely gold and black design, with the gold in a 'flame' like pattern around the chest with matching rings on the cuffs. I suspect that Bogarde's waiter uniform (seen below) was tailored for him personally, while the rest of the cast's costumes were vintage wear due to the then-recent setting.

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