Oscar-nominated costume designer Ellen Mirojnick is the person you want to be dressed by in Hollywood. Not only does she create culture-shifting designs for TV and film, but she’s been known to outfit some of Hollywood's most iconic actors. These include Michael Douglas’ Oscar-winning portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, and the casts of Basic Instinct, The Greatest Showman, The Knick, and Logan Lucky. This talent earned her an Oscar nomination for her work in 2023’s Best Picture winner and box office smash, Oppenheimer.
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For her Treat, Mirojnick shares why the 1958 film Auntie Mame impacted her life from her first viewing at the age of eight, and why it continues to resonate so deeply with her to this day. Set in the 1920s, the story follows Mame Dennis, (aka Auntie Mame), played by Rosalind Russell, as she navigates the decade as a progressive independent woman tasked with raising her nephew. The film's depiction of 1920s New York captivated Mirojnick, particularly Auntie Mame’s glamorous and eclectic lifestyle. For Mirojnick, Mame’s fabulous clothes, her modern lifestyle, and ever-changing apartment décor sparked a lifelong fascination with design and extravagance.
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This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
There was one movie that actually had an impact on my life, my whole life. I saw it when I was maybe eight years old. And from that day forward, to this day, I think I've seen this film hundreds of times.
The film is Auntie Mame and it stars Rosalind Russell. From the day that I saw this film, I'll never ever forget it. I lived in New York at the time but [I thought] New York looked so glamorous. When Patrick [Dennis] walked into the apartment [for the first time] she had this most eclectic, fabulous cocktail party going on. It was the ‘20s, supposedly. I didn't know about history, really. But the decoration of her apartment with a magnificent staircase just drove me crazy and in my head I said, 'I want this, I want this, I want this.’
Right when Russell comes streaming down the staircase in the most exquisite, fabulous, kind of lounge-ish outfit — costume sparkling, making noise with her bracelets, gorgeous glitter… What moved me even more, was that every couple of weeks the apartment changed in design. [With] every design that was unfolded in the apartment, my eyes opened further and further and further. And by the time it got to the ups and downs, which was the modern element at that time — where the furniture went up and down and up and down — she was really doing her best sarcastic hostess presentation, I just screamed with delight in my brain.
But that movie in itself — every era, every costume, every notion of humor, glamor, eccentricity, and travel… Where you could be transported and how your eyes can open up to the magic… [It] stayed with me then and it is the North Star [to] me now.