Costume Design by:
- Piero Tosi ( notable efforts: The Leopard (1963), The Damned (1969), Medea (1969), Death in Venice (1971), The Night Porter (1974), The Innocent (1976), Lady of the Camelias (1981), La traviata (1982) )
One of several Italian anthology films released in the 1960s, The Witches' (aka Le Streghe) segments are themed around the roles of women in Italian society, all starring Silvana Mangano in a different role. The various segments are directed by different directors, one of them being none other than Pier Paolo Pasolini, though his segment, 'The Earth Seen from the Moon', isn't covered here thanks to its costumes not being notable enough to highlight, though its set designs were very nice. Costume designer Piero Tosi would later work with Pasolini on
Medea, and had already worked with Luschino Visconti who directs the first segment of this, 'The Witch Burned Alive'. This segment takes place in a chalet for wealthy socialites, with Silva Mangano playing a famous actress who wears this gorgeous golden dress and domed headpiece.
Gloria's dress is matched in glitziness by the silver-streaked sparkly top worn by fellow socialite Valeria (Annie Girardot).
The other dresses worn by the extras aren't that notable, with the exception of this green glittery top and shiny golden pants number worn by one particular partygoer.
The following segment, 'Civic Spirit' (directed by Mauro Bolognini) has Mangano as an unnamed 'Woman in a Hurry' who exploits a man being wounded and needing hospital just as a way to bypass the traffic! 'Woman in a Hurry' wears this black lace dress with a silver top, and with a pink feathered headdress.
The rest of the film's more striking costumes are seen in the final segment, Vittorio De Sica's 'An Evening Like the Others', where Mangano plays 'Giovanna', a wife bitter that her marriage is going nowhere thanks to her useless husband Carlo (Clint Eastwood). It is in Giovanna's ornate power fantasies where the costumes really are seen - or not seen rather, thanks to deliberately fuzzy footage, extreme closeups and very brief appearances. The first of the dream dresses is this red one with flowers fitted around the collar. Another few dresses that is barely seen in the film is a shiny silver dress with a black fur coat over it, only seen at a distance that makes screenshotting pointless.
These early dream sequences also have one of the film's most iconic costumes, the black vinyl dress adorned with beads and sequins around the cuffs, as well as a large trailing end to the dress, and completed with a hood covered in spines - only seen very briefly in the film itself, this has several publicity photos showing it off in all its glory. One of the early dream sequences involves Giovanna dreaming of being rescued by various Italian superheroes (well, supervillains maybe, but still) such as Kriminal and Diabolik, and I wonder if the kinky all-black dress was inspired by the design of these characters.
Giovanna's fantasies turn to being the centre of attention of other men, and in one of them she wears this orange jumpsuit with golden trim and jewellery around the collar.
This is then followed by her wearing a furred yellow dress and black flowery hat with it.
Lastly, is the dress worn during Giovanna's most impressive fantasy, where she is followed by hundreds of men into a stadium where she performs a striptease - the dress she wears is black, with a streaming cape going up from the skirt, and is made up of black, green, yellow and red fabric. During the striptease, each time a section of the cape is taken off, the dress changes colour to one of the cape material, but that's a bit hard to show off in screenshots!
