Look-of-the-Day

In featuring Oscar-nominated film costumes this week, we had to come up with a gown for “Fancy Friday.”  While scrolling through past nominees, we forgot Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture in 1981!  It probably isn’t the first film that comes to mind for glamorous outfits, but Indiana Jones’ love interest gets to wear some beautiful clothing.  Karen Allen plays Marion Ravenwood, a spunky bartender/journalist/adventurer who Harrison Ford’s character falls for in the Steven Spielberg film.  A sassy, blue-eyed, brown-haired tomboy that gets to run around Egypt and Europe with the sexiest archaeologist known to man?  As a child, I pretty much wanted to be her when I grew up.  (I got to do most of that, but I’ve yet to find a historian that happens to look like Harrison Ford… Or fight Nazis lol.)  At the climax of the film, Marion sports a beautiful creamy white satin gown (technically a nightgown) while she gets kidnapped by the villains.  Beforehand, she and Indy do get to spend some downtime together though…   Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman told TheRaider.net, “Karen Allen’s character was hard to get right. It was tough to transition a self reliant trousered tomboy into a glamorous wench who could wear a white tulle gown followed by a very bare white bias cut satin slip.”  Well, we think she nailed it!  In the film’s fourth installment, the two characters cross paths again, and when Marion tells Indiana there must have been other women, he tells her they all had the same problem: “They weren’t you, honey.”