Costuming the Guinness World Records with Ben Hollinghum

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Dressed — The History of Fashion

Episode: “Costuming the Guinness World Records with Ben Hollingam”

Date: May 29, 2026
Host(s): Cassidy Zachary & April Callahan
Guest: Ben Hollingam, Senior Editor, Guinness World Records

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the intersection of fashion, costuming, and record-breaking through the lens of the Guinness World Records annual publication. Cassidy Zachary and April Callahan are joined by Ben Hollingam, Senior Editor of Guinness World Records, for an in-depth discussion about their recent collaborations documenting costume and fashion-related records—first in 2024 with a spread on fashion, and again in the 2025 edition focusing on costuming in film and television. Along the way, the trio delves into the curious nature of records, research challenges, and behind-the-scenes tidbits from both Guinness World Records and the world of costuming.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Origins & Uniqueness of Guinness World Records

• Background: Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of Guinness Brewery in the 1950s, started the record book to settle debates (02:00).
• Scope: Today, the Guinness World Records book and database cover everything from the mundane to the bizarre.
• Fashion Connection: Prior to 2024, fashion had never been featured as a dedicated spread in the annual.

2. Ben Hollingam: The Job & Record Discovery

• Ben shares how his role involves uncovering strange and often delightful records (05:03).
• Memorable record: The Kentucky Meat Shower—an unexplained 19th-century American phenomenon (05:20–07:44).
• Fashion and body-related records remain a classic staple (08:06).

3. Standout Record Holders

• Diana Armstrong: Longest fingernails on a pair of hands (08:51).
  • Quote: “Her story is that her 16 year old daughter who used to manicure her nails tragically died and she vowed never to cut them again...I found so incredibly moving and surprising.” — Cassidy Zachary [09:09]
• Unusual Feats: Most candy canes in a beard, illustrating the breadth and whimsy of records (11:18–12:06).

4. Introducing Fashion & Costume Records

• Genesis of Costuming Feature:
  • Post-2024, the team sought a more focused subsection—costumes in film and TV—for the 2025 book (13:03).
  • Need to balance objective measures (box office, money) with more creative and artistic records.

5. Groundbreaking Costume Records in Guinness

• First Credited Movie Costume Designer:

  • Discovery and research challenges with incomplete credits and pseudonyms (15:14–19:21).
  • Quote: “We know what the first costume design credit is, but we don't know who the first costume designer was.” — Ben Hollingam [19:21]

• First Fashion Film:

  • Early 1910s short “fashion films” showing Paris styles to audiences (20:39–22:08).
  • Historical significance of fashion as spectacle in both early and modern films.

• Most Expensive Wardrobe:

  • “Sex and the City 2” (2010): $10 million spent; 41 costume changes for Carrie Bradshaw, one outfit costing $230,000 (23:19–24:34).

• Highest-Grossing Costume Designer:

  • Judiana Makovsky: $11.3 billion total global box office, with credits like “Harry Potter,” “The Hunger Games,” “Avengers: Endgame” (25:29–27:20).

• Most Costumes in a Movie:

  • "Quo Vadis" (1951): 32,000 costumes, 15,000 hand-sewn sandals, 12,000 pieces of handmade jewelry (28:34–32:07).
  • Quote: “They basically ended up doing a kind of economic stimulus for post war Italy by employing everyone who could hold a needle...” — Ben Hollingam [31:23]

• Heaviest Movie Costume:

  • Adrian’s design for “Marie Antoinette” (1938): 110 pounds/50kg, out-weighing lead actress Norma Shearer (33:13–34:47).
  • Also touches on the myth of the Cowardly Lion costume from “The Wizard of Oz” (35:32).

• Most Expensive Movie Costume Ever Sold:

  • Marilyn Monroe’s white dress from “The Seven Year Itch”: $4.6 million (38:47).
  • Discussion around wording—single vs. multiple costume pieces, e.g., Dorothy’s gingham dress and ruby slippers collectively (39:02).

• Most Fabric Used in a Movie Costume (Multiples):

  • Sandy Powell’s blue ballgown for “Cinderella” (2016): eight versions, 273 yards of fabric, 10,000 Swarovski crystals (41:11).
  • Quote: “It took 20 people 4,000 hours to create eight versions of this one dress...the size of a football field.” — Cassidy Zachary [40:24]

• Most Costume Changes in a Movie by One Character:

  • Robert De Niro in “The Irishman”: 102 changes (42:56).

6. Legendary Figures in Costume Design

• Sandy Powell:

  • Multiple Guinness-record-related achievements, decorated with BAFTA, Oscar nominations and wins.

• Edith Head:

  • Quote: “Who's the costume designer that's done the most films? Edith Head. Everyone knows that.” — Cassidy Zachary [44:03]
  • 432 Hollywood productions, 8 Oscars, active from 1925–1982; renowned for her “costume bibles” (45:19).
  • Also noted for dressing stars off-set, e.g. for weddings and awards, illustrating costume designers’ impact beyond the screen.

7. Most Costly Movie Costume

• Ginger Rogers' showgirl ensemble (1944’s “Lady in the Dark”):
  • Fur-trimmed, sequined, multiple versions; total cost $35,000 then ($620,000+ today) (48:55).
  • Contrast with other extravagant costumes and the economics of classic film production.

8. Behind-the-Scenes of Record Research

• Research Nuances:
  • Challenges around definitions (e.g., costume vs. prop), incomplete archives, pseudonyms, and multiples (e.g., Dorothy’s costumes, superhero costumes) (53:08–54:39).
• Many fun records are close calls or require “inconclusive research,” e.g., most befeathered costume, least costumes in theater.

9. Conclusion & Looking Ahead

• Teaser: Cassidy collaborated on a textile art section for Guinness World Records 2026, including the 14-year “Red Dress” embroidery project, now the largest collaborative embroidery record (55:42).
• Ben hints at future editions and uncovering more oddities and achievements for the book (55:03).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I had to know, what is a meat shower? And the answer is, nobody knows. Just Sometimes in the 19th century in America, it rained meat.” — Ben Hollingam [06:09]
• “Her story is that her 16 year old daughter who used to manicure her nails tragically died and she vowed never to cut them again...I found so incredibly moving and surprising.” — Cassidy Zachary [09:09]
• “You have a very fascinating job, Ben.” — Cassidy Zachary [12:06]
• “We know what the first costume design credit is, but we don't know who the first costume designer was.” — Ben Hollingam [19:21]
• “It was like it's 600ft of film. I think I worked out probably about 10 minute runtime.” — Ben Hollingam [22:00]
• “It’s nice to see costume designers getting their flowers in this section.” — Cassidy Zachary [27:20]
• “They basically ended up doing a kind of economic stimulus for post war Italy by employing everyone who could hold a needle...” — Ben Hollingam [31:23]
• “I think it's in the collection of the VA at the moment, I believe in London. And it is just absolutely wild because it's three parts...It's got a kind of mink fur bolero that's on screen for about five seconds.” — Ben Hollingam [49:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:23] Fashion-related records in Guinness World Records
• [08:51] Diana Armstrong’s record for longest fingernails
• [13:03] The birth of the Guinness movie costume spread
• [15:14] Researching the first credited costume designer
• [20:39] Discovery of the first fashion film
• [23:19] Most expensive wardrobe: "Sex and the City 2"
• [25:29] Highest-grossing costume designer: Judiana Makovsky
• [28:34] Most costumes in one film: "Quo Vadis"
• [33:13] Heaviest movie costume: "Marie Antoinette" (1938)
• [38:47] Most expensive film costume ever sold
• [41:11] Most fabric used in a film costume: "Cinderella" (2016)
• [42:56] Most costume changes: De Niro in "The Irishman"
• [44:03] Edith Head's legendary career
• [48:55] Most costly movie costume: "Lady in the Dark" (1944)
• [55:42] Textile art record: The "Red Dress" embroidery project

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Tone & Style

The conversation is witty, inquisitive, and rich in anecdotes and historical detail. Cassidy’s enthusiasm for costume history blends well with Ben’s dry humor and encyclopedic knowledge of obscure records. April’s interjections add warmth and keep the discussion moving. The tone remains light, engaging, and accessible—making complex research and fashion history both relatable and fun to non-experts.

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Final Thoughts

This episode celebrates not only the spectacle and extravagance of costuming in entertainment, but also the obsessive research and delightfully odd stories behind Guinness World Records. It reveals how deeply intertwined costume and cultural history are, and the surprising ways in which both fields continue to inspire, amuse, and challenge our perceptions of achievement.

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Transcript

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[Cassidy Zachary]

Dress the History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day we all get dressed.

[April Callahan]

Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear we are friends, fashion historians and your hosts, April

[Cassidy Zachary]

Callahan and Cassidy Zachary. Hello April. Hello dress listeners. I am super excited about today's episode because I get to share some research from one of my favorite side hustles or side bustles. We of course wear so many fashionable hats. As fashion historians we have our hands in lots of pots and one of mine includes consulting for Guinness World Records annual publication which has been one of the funnest consulting gigs I've ever had.

[April Callahan]

And for those of you who don't know Guinness World Records, it was originally the Guinness Book of World Records conceived by a man by the name of Sir Hugh Beaver. What a fabulous name by the way, in the 1950s and at that time he was a managing director of the Guinness Brewery. Long story short, he had the idea of creating a book of interesting facts and figures after he had an unresolved argument with some of his friends about what the fastest game bird in Europe was. That is a very quirky conundrum.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And so he used this as inspiration for a Guinness Brewery promo about how to settle pub arguments. And this would ultimately result in the publication of the first but not the last Guinness Book of World Records. So fast forward to today and and Guinness World Records is undeniably the ultimate authority on record breaking achievements, even if they are no longer affiliated with the Guinness Brewery.

[April Callahan]

Do you think that you are the tallest person in the world, have the longest fingernails or can fit the most pencils in your beard or hamburgers in your mouth? Guinness World Records is the place for you. If so, you can try and set records for yourself or also enjoy learning about the people, places, objects and animals that have set them historically and around the world today. So, from the typical to the fantastical and downright bizarre, anything you can think of and beyond is found within the pages of their annual book as well as on their online database.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes, and I actually follow them on Instagram. And a woman just set the record for most T shirts worn while running a marathon. If you want an idea about how

[April Callahan]

many was she wearing, I have to ask.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I think it was like 54 or something. Crazy. And so there are plenty of fashion and dress related records in this database. But until 2024, Guinness World Records had never had a spread in their annual publication dedicated to fashion and fashion history specifically. But that all changed thanks to today's guest, Ben Hollingam, senior editor at Guinness World Records, who invited me along for the journey of of creating the first ever fashion spread for the 2024 edition. And you may remember, dress listeners, that Ben actually joined us in 2023 for a lively conversation about our collaboration. And I am so thrilled to welcome him back today to discuss our second collab, which was on the 2025 edition, which was all about costuming, records and film and television.

[April Callahan]

Ben, a very warm welcome back to Dressed.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Ben, welcome back to dress.

[Ben Hollingam]

Thank you. It's been a long time. I'm happy to be back.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I know we're just. We've obviously collaborated over the years since you were last on the show, but it's been three years since you actually first came on Dressed, which is amazing. Where does the time go? It's kind of crazy.

[Ben Hollingam]

I feel bad for the fact that I think the only reason why I haven't been on is because I just forget about everything and I'm generally a bit flaky.

[Cassidy Zachary]

You have a lot of things going on in that brain of yours. I'm sure that's the reason.

[Ben Hollingam]

It's definitely that. Not me just being chronically disorganized.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So before we dive into our collaborations, we've done a couple since you were last on the show. I'm hoping you might share if there are any new records that dress listeners should know about so that people have set or that you yourself have researched or uncovered.

[Ben Hollingam]

I was trying to think of, obviously this is not necessarily the sort of dress or fashion related ones, just general, random things. And that's such a broad category for me. I was trying to think of the one that has tickled me the most. Over the last sort of few years. And I think probably for just sheer wonderful strangeness, I think it must be the largest meat shower, which. What? It's. What it sounds like. It's a shower of meat, basically. I came across a reference to an incident called the Kentucky meat shower, where it rained meat in Kentucky in the late 19th century. And I thought, that's really weird. And then I asked my meteorology consultant, a guy called Randall Savini, who works for the World Meteorological Association. Serious scientist, serious man. And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's a meat shower. Yeah, they happened quite a lot in the 19th century. And so I was then off. I had to know, what is a meat shower? And the answer is, nobody knows. Just Sometimes in the 19th century in America, it rained meat.

[Cassidy Zachary]

What, so this is just, like, well documented?

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, it happened a couple of times. The Kentucky meat shower is the largest. The contemporary report described it as approximately a wagon load of meat, which is a wonderful measure. It was apparently quite fresh and tasted of venison, because someone ate some, apparently.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, interesting.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So what, realistically or rationally, what do you think the meat shower was?

[Ben Hollingam]

The best guesses are either somehow a tornado picked up some carrion, or perhaps a vulture flock of vultures dropped it. No one's entirely sure. There was also a meat shower in Tennessee in the 1840s, which was described as putrid and foul, and a meat shower in California in the 1870s, which wonderfully was described as slightly tainted.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Also, the fact that this is all happening in the United States is very interesting.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yes, yes. It's a uniquely American phenomenon. As far as I can tell, it doesn't rain meat anywhere else.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Why does this not surprise me? Why does this feel like a uniquely American butcher pigeon?

[Ben Hollingam]

But sadly, I think, like the passenger pigeon, the meat shower is extinct in America. Don't know why, but there are no reports of a meat shower since the 1890s, I think, apart from rains of fish, but they're a different thing. They're still.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I don't know. I wonder. You know, people never cease to surprise me. Maybe someone's gonna try and recreate this meat shower now that you've put it out in the universe.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, that does ring a vague bell. I think there was an incident involving somebody trying to distribute Thanksgiving turkeys from a plane in the 50s. But that's. Yeah, not a record. Just a very weird story.

[Cassidy Zachary]

This is why I love your job. I think it's so fascinating because not only are you looking for these records, sometimes these records just find you And I find what you do so fascinating. I find Guinness World Records so fascinating. Obviously I'm not the only one. That's why it's been around for so long. But especially these body and dress related records, of course, I find especially fascinating. And these are really the more what I would call classic records. Like what you think of when you think of Guinness World Records. Like the tallest man, the tallest woman. There's also like biggest feet on a teenager. And then I appreciated it in your 2025 edition that you featured one of the Guinness World Records icons who is Diana Armstrong.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Who holds two records. Longest fingernails on a pair of hands and longest fingernails on a pair of hands ever. I think her longest nail is her thumb and it's almost five feet long.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yep. And she paints them all the time. Her and her daughters just layer on the nail polish.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And I was reading that record because it's a full two page spread about her. Something I also love about Guinness World Records is there's a lot of meaning and stories behind some of these records and these people and her story in particular, because I think people immediately when you see someone with that long of a nail or nails, you're like, why? And her story is that her 16 year old daughter who used to manicure her nails tragically died and she vowed never to cut them again as a lasting memento to her daughter, which I found so incredibly moving and surprising.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, it's fascinating the different motivations people have ranging from the very profound and the quite sad to the strange and sometimes they're just wonderfully non existent. Just I felt like it.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Do you have any favorite stories or people you've met over the years through your work in terms of that?

[Ben Hollingam]

I think I routinely just sort of encounter these people. And I recently met the woman who holds the record for the fastest trip from Land's End to John O. Groats in a non racing wheelchair. So that is going from the bottom of Cornwall, down in the very farthest southwest of England all the way up to the top of Scotland. And she did it in 44 days, which is a really astonishing speed when you consider that this is not one of those streamlined three wheeled things. It's just a regular wheelchair that you can get from a shop or be handed by the hospital. And she's this army veteran who she has a condition that causes her chronic pain. And as a strange result she has managed to parley that into a kind of superp where she does stuff that most people would find unendurably painful by Just the magic of just ignoring it, which turns out you can do if you have sufficient willpower.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And is this a flat route? Is she going up and down hills?

[Ben Hollingam]

I think she picked the flattest route she could find. But there's still quite a lot of mountains and hills between here and there and unintended obstacles.

[Cassidy Zachary]

People you meet, animals you meet.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah. Passing cars, that kind of thing. Because she was just going down the street.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. No. I think it's just so incredibly fascinating the people who commit themselves to also applying themselves to getting these records right and what they choose to try and achieve, really, it's like the world's their oyster. Anything you can possibly imagine. I think one of my other favorite ones in here or just, you know, there's just so many bizarre ones. Right. Like most candy canes in a beard, you guys will literally, if someone says, I'm gonna set this record, you say, okay.

[Ben Hollingam]

The holder of that record has a very dense beard. And you'd be amazed what he's managed to put in it over the years. Candygaines is just one of his achievements. I believe he also has some other Christmas themed things. I think he's managed. He's managed baubles clipped into the beard and matchsticks, cocktail sticks, drinking straws. It's an interesting party track.

[Cassidy Zachary]

You have a very fascinating job, Ben. And I love my job because I get to meet people like you who by the sheer fact that you're interested in fashion and costumes means I get to come into the fascinating world of Guinness World Records with you and experience the joy that is these record setting attempts and the history involved in a lot of them, which is just so fascinating. And I've had so much fun working with you over the years. And so last time you were here, we talked about our collaboration on Goodness World Records first ever fashion spread. And you asked me back to consult on a movie costume section for the 2025 edition. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for adding this section? Are you a movie buff or is it just an extension already of the endless categories that fill your brain at any one given time?

[Ben Hollingam]

It was a couple of things. The main thing was the experience of doing the fashion spread, as we learned at the time is the problem of giving yourself such an enormous subject to pick a tiny selection from was a bit bewildering. And so there was a thought to I should try and find a smaller, neater little kind of subset that I can go for. The other thing was that I have a sort of parallel desire to Find ways of talking about creative arts in a way that is more reflective of the kind of work that goes into them and the things about them that people love. Because there is at risk with Guinness World Records, we tend to gravitate towards things that can be objectively measured. And the easiest thing to objectively measure is money. And so there is always a risk that you just end up talking about box office returns and things like that. And that's interesting, but you want to get beyond that. And so this was part of a pair of spreads. The other one was on just sort of movie making of stuff, behind the scenes things and that kind of thing. And I thought that this was a great opportunity to get you back in and talk about what I knew would be an interesting selection of records. And it absolutely was. I think it was also, I think originally, I think I intended for it to encompass. I can't remember whether I intended to include theatre stuff as well or if it just ended up being just movies for the most part. I think there are a few theater adjacent things, but it's mostly just films.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, it's mostly just films, as far as I recall. I'm looking at it right now. There's one record, which we'll talk about in a minute, that has to do with theater as well. There is, of course, some crossover when you're talking about costume and costume making especially. But first I just wanted to start talking about two of your records. So we collaborate on this. So you have records that you work on and then I have records that I work on. And some of them make it in the spread, some don't. Some were building on existing records that already exist in the system. But can you tell us about the first credited movie, costume designer, and then the first fashion film?

[Ben Hollingam]

So those are two kind of related records in terms of my process. So the reason why I started with the first costume designer is whenever I'm doing a spread like this, a feature on kind of a subject, I like to begin by finding the first, the beginning of whatever this thing is. Because partly it's a good introduction to the reader. It shows the reader, gives the reader an intro to the world. But also it's useful from a research point of view because it's a good starting point to establish your definitions and your field. So this year I did a feature on action movies with my consultant who does film, Stephen Follows. And it was that thing of you write first action movie and then you go, oh, what is an action movie? Now that I think about it, that's a Much more vague thing to define than I thought it was before I started. And so, yeah, with a record like this, it's always good to be able to get a beginning and to just figure out what I mean by costume and movies and so forth. And yeah, like the. I think the first suggestion I had for this was Hattie Carnegie, wasn't it? I think just based on rummaging around in various things. And then I think you countered with Claire west and then we both went,

[Cassidy Zachary]

yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hollingam]

Because it's always that difficult thing where you're like, well, if that's the record, then that's the record.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Claire west was in the 20s, Hattie Carnegie was maybe in the 30s.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, she was early 30s.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And you have to be very careful with your wording in Guinness World Records and you really have to pay attention because wording's with Guinness World Records, as you'll notice. But this is the first credited movie costume designer, so there are plenty of uncredited costume designers, especially in this very early period. We're heading back into early 20th century cinema, especially in these early periods. Not all costume designers, if ever in the earliest stages, were ever credited. But you were able to find the first credited movie costume designer, which was surprising to both of us.

[Ben Hollingam]

Well, one of the things as well is there is a confusing, ambiguous thing where because a lot of these films were lost, there was a tendency to credit costume designers in the PR material surrounding the launch of the film, but they're not actually credited in the film credits. And I decided that didn't count.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Right.

[Ben Hollingam]

But yes, I roped back in my movie consultant, Stephen Follows, who is. He is a film data analyst and he crunched the numbers and ran through all of his many databases and produced the name Madame Stipange, who was the credited costume Designer on the 19. Was it 1914 film? 1912.

[Cassidy Zachary]

1912, yes.

[Ben Hollingam]

Film Cleopatra. No relation to the later Elizabeth Taylor film, other than it being very loosely about Cleopatra.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Right.

[Ben Hollingam]

And that, that was really interesting because I learned about the star and impresario of that whole studio was one called Helen Gardner, who was one of the first American actors and writers to make a feature length film. It is, I think, one of the first feature length films ever made in the US and one of the first anywhere. But yes, there's a woman called Madame Stipange who is credited as the costume designer. The problem with that is, as far as I can tell, that's not a name and Madame Stipende doesn't actually exist.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I started no other Evidence of her.

[Ben Hollingam]

I started with film magazines and then I moved on to newspaper archives and then census records. And I have to assume it's a pseudonym.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes, a pseudonym.

[Ben Hollingam]

Or maybe a really weird spelling mistake, perhaps.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Also possible. And fashion designers. Costume designers sometimes would. Yeah. Use a pseudonym. Or it's her professional name that she used. But it's really. If she was a professional, you would think that she would show up somewhere else. So that's really interesting.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah. So it means that we know what the first costume design credit is, but we don't know who the first costume designer was.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Again, one of those nuances of Guinness World Record.

[Ben Hollingam]

We also, you know, in the same credit block, Helen Gardner is credited with designing her own costumes as Cleopatra. So there is. It is entirely possible that she also designed the other costumes and just wanted to make her very small theater company turned movie company look a bit bigger and more impressive than it was.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And at this time, the profession of costume design and film wasn't yet really established. And it continues to grow and solidify into the teens and into the 20s and early 30s. By then, you really do have these costume designers at these studios. But. So it could have been a collaborative effort. It would have been a number of things that went into the making of it. Somebody did the backroom, somebody did the men, somebody did the women. But anyways, it's fascinating nonetheless, especially since it's so early 1912 and then also fascinating. Again, I did not know this. You enlightened me when you discovered this record or researched this record was the first fashion movie and fashion movies. Of course, we're still very much indebted to this fashion model today, but it goes back very far in the history of film.

[Ben Hollingam]

So this was a revelation to me while I was researching this film, going back through early 20th century Film magazines and things like that, looking for any reference to costumes or anything like that. I found a bunch of references to what were called in the listings fashion films. And I discovered that this was a genre in. I think it started in the kind of very early, kind of new kind of Edison black and white short reel films era. But I think it kept going into the 30s and maybe even the 40s as like a segment within, like, movie newsreels, which was these short films that were just. It was basically just a sometimes a static shot of some models, sometimes it was models walking around. But it was just a little news thing about the latest fashions from Paris because that was the fashion center of the world. And this was a way of showing people what they looked like. And especially what they looked like in motion. And they remained a very popular part of cinema, it seems, for quite a long time. And I just never heard of these things. And. Yeah, the earliest one I was able to find was from February 1910 in the UK. It was quite strange. Give you an idea of how old it was. I think rather than a running time, it gave its length in feet. So.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Interesting.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, it was like it's 600ft of film. I think I worked out roughly probably about 10 minute runtime.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, I was going to say it's not very long, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really fascinating. There's famously a film called the Women. I think it's from 1939. And Adrian Gilbert. Adrian, who we'll talk about in a minute too, really famous film costume turned fashion designer, designed the wizard of Oz, among many other films, but he designed the women. But there is. It's in. The whole movie's in black and white. And there's famously. This, at least famously within fashion, the fashion field. 10 minute fashion run, like fashion montage, right. Fashion show that has nothing to do with the movie. It's in full color and it's literally just to highlight Adrienne fashion design for the audience. It serves no other purpose. So much so that the director was furious about it. But the film execs were like, no, no, no. Women audiences love this. Women audiences will come to theater just to see this. So it's really fascinating to know just how important that was. And of course, we're indebted to this today. As I briefly mentioned, we have this legacy of movies. Maybe they don't have specific montages, but where fashion is literally a character in the film or TV show. My favorites are Clueless, Devil Wears Prada, but also Sex and the City, that entire TV show. Both of the films all have fashion as this central force that is arguably a character in the film. And there is, of course, as you know, one Sex and the City related Guinness World Record featured in this spread, which is the not surprising to me. Most expensive wardrobe for a movie goes to sex. Sex in the City 2 costume designs by Patricia Field. Pat Field. Let's see what the record says. It is reported $10 million, 6.9 million euros was spent on lavish designer wardrobe for the stars of Sex and City 2, which came out in 2010. Not my favorite film, I'm just gonna say that. But the costumes were amazing. Journalists counted 41 costume changes for Carrie Bradshaw alone, with one outfit costing around $230,000. By itself, €160,000, which is just astounding, but not at all surprising to people who love Sex and the City because it's about fashion.

[Ben Hollingam]

The thing I found fascinating about that was didn't you reach out to some of your contacts and confirm that generally they do just buy these clothes. They don't rent them or borrow them. It's usually the strange economics of filmmaking. It's easier to buy them.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes. So sometimes brands specifically will, especially with such high caliber stars like Sarah Jessica Parker, will gift wardrobe. I do know though that Sarah Jessica Parker puts it in every single one of her contracts that she gets to keep her wardrobe. So she got to keep that $230,000 outfit because she's archived everything she's worn in every movie since I think the 80s or 90et, which is just remarkable.

[Ben Hollingam]

That's an interesting exhibition for the future.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And then you also have in this same section, highest grossing costume designer at the global box office. Do you want to tell us about that? Some of these records I would never even consider. But your brain works this way.

[Ben Hollingam]

Well, it's always quite interesting, the question of like highest grossing. When you get like a highest grossing movie, it's a kind of obvious thing, but when you get into individual people in a. In the film production industry, it can be quite surprising. Like I think. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but for quite a long time, I believe the highest grossing actor in terms of total box office earnings of films he was in was Warwick Davis, who was Willow. He was R2D2. I think that I might be misremembering, but I think he was certainly in the running and it's just he was in all the Star wars films and he was in Willow and he was in most of the Harry Potter films. And it adds up even if you're not, you're not the person who's on the poster.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I love that. I love. Let's just sidebar Warwick Davis praise really quickly because I love that man so much. I grew up on a trio of movies. David Bowie's Labyrinth, these are all high fantasy films, cult classics today. Tom Cruise, Tim Curry, Legend, Best devil of all time, Tim Curry and Legend. And then Willow, starring Warwick Davis. So that makes me very happy to know. Give him all his praise, all his flowers.

[Ben Hollingam]

But yes, the highest grossing costume designer is Judiana Makovsky, who's at least at the time when we did the feature, her combined works had earned 11. Just doing that thing. We have to count the commas earned $11.3 billion at the box office.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Wow.

[Ben Hollingam]

So I'm sure what her films are.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Here I have it. Her work has appeared in a string of blockbusters including Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Hunger Games and Avengers. Endgame. So three blockbuster films, right. That made a lot of money at the box office. But I just loved this record because again, you don't always. You almost never. And I don't want to say you. I want to say maybe collectively. Popular culture often forgets about the costume designer, right? So we have all these iconic favorite movies that would never exist if these people were naked on stage. And the costume designer and their huge crew behind the scenes are incredibly integral to the success of any film. So it's nice to see costume designers getting their flowers in this section. So moving on to another record. In this section, most costumes used in a movie belongs to. And I'm probably not saying this correctly, so forgive my Latin. Quo Vadis from 1951 starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr with costume design by Herschel McCoy, had a remarkable 32,000 costumes in this film. And most of them, an estimated 30,000 of them were made just for the background or the background actors. This is the golden age of cinema. So it's the 1950s that when they would still do these huge massive productions with real people and real costumes that are actually made specifically for the film, 30,000 just for the background actors. And this included a remarkable 15,000 hand sewn sandals and 12,000 pieces of handmade jewelry. So if you include not just the piece of costume, that costume itself, but also all the accessories, you're looking at probably over 100,000 pieces, which is just insane.

[Ben Hollingam]

I have a particular fondness for this sort of saying the kind of golden age of Hollywood, wildly over the top productions. I one of the things, we'll talk about this later with the most expensive costume. But there is films are. It's a business, you're trying to keep costs down. You're kind of trying to keep things under control, keep things on budget and on schedule. And it is pretty much guaranteed that if a film has gotten into our book for something production related, it indicates that something went very wrong. That somebody, a diary director or a producer got a little sort of megalomaniacal and out of control. And you have this wonderful idea of Quo vardis. They all went off to Italy and they're shooting all this stuff and doing all these things. And the idea of the producers back at the studio getting memos being like, have commissioned another 600 costume makers what? What? What? Why? And yeah, I do love that kind of. I recently. Well, not recently. I think it was last year. Wrote a feature on Gone with the Wind, which I think remains the sort of inflation adjusted highest grossing movie of all time.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, really? How much?

[Ben Hollingam]

And it basic. I can't remember what it is. It's like somewhere in the region of 3 or 4 billion dollars, adjusted for inflation. But.

[April Callahan]

Wow.

[Ben Hollingam]

The thing that's wonderful about it is just it basically had to be the highest grossing movie of all time if it was gonna break even because the production went so wildly off the rails. There's a wonderful thing I discovered, which was that David Selznick, the producer, was on a diet at the time and his diet was bananas, peanuts and amphetamines.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Hollingam]

And he just made an endless succession of very questionable decisions and wrote a lot of strange, neurotic middle of the night memos where he'd be like, are we sure this is a good idea? Maybe we should do it differently. I don't know. And yeah, I do like these things. And Quo Vadis, I think, is definitely one of those. With just this. I think they basically ended up doing a kind of economic stimulus for post war Italy by employing everyone who could hold a needle in the room area.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's so fascinating. I've never seen it, but I'm gonna have to check it out. I'm a huge fan of movies from this era too, such as Cleopatra. Right. And I don't know if that was a box office. I feel like that was a box office fail, but maybe I'm making that up in my head. But again, one of those, like, incredibly epic undertakings, like feat of filmmaking and just thousands and thousands of people working on it.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah. With. I think with. I couldn't find a confirmation of this, but I believe Hollywood lore is that the costumes from Coyvadis were still being used into the 70s, I think possibly even the 80s. They still showed up in things. Cause they just had so many of them that they weren't gonna waste them.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. And that happens a lot. And they keep them in these costume houses like angels. That has 5 million costumes. Some of these stretch back decades. In theory. They take these more historical pieces and archive them. Right. When they know if it has the label sewn into it, know the actor who wore it and what film. But a lot of times they get recycled for economical purposes. Right, that makes sense. But there's actually a really wonderful account, at least on Instagram, called Recycled Movie Costumes or Recycled Film Costumes. And I don't know how she does this or he. I'm not sure who it is they, how the person does it who runs this account, but they tell you this, this costume was worn in these three films and then they show you and it's usually worn by a main actor in the first film and then you find it on the background actor in another film.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, dyed slightly differently with a jacket on the back. Yeah, I think there's a bunch of costumes, wasn't there in particular, there's a load of costumes that were made for the 1990s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I think that have showed up in almost every Regency drama since probably.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes, exactly, exactly. You're spot on. So another record from this section which was fun to research was heaviest movie costume. And that belongs to, we had mentioned Adrian a little bit ago. Adrian Greenberg, usually credited under the mononym Adrian, designed a dress that weighed 110 pounds or 49.9 kilograms for the wedding scene and the period drama Marie Antoinette from 1938. The starred Norma Shearer in the title role. So modeled on those worn at the court of France's King Louis XVI, this dress consisted of a steel frame crinoline, 10 petticoats and 500 yards or 457 meters of white silk satin fabric that was hand embroidered with silver thread, fleur de lis and etched with seed pearl beads. And reportedly the lead actress Norma Shearer, as I just mentioned, weighed less than her clothes when she filmed this scene. 110 pounds, imagine.

[Ben Hollingam]

I think it's also particularly fun of, as you're saying, when you say it was modeled on the clothes worn in the court of Louis the Four. Because the historical accuracy of 1930s and 1940s costumes is often a little questionable.

[Cassidy Zachary]

He got the vibe. He got the Marie Antoinette vibe. Right. That's all we really want.

[Ben Hollingam]

I did find some accounts in sort of Hollywood gossip pages that Norma Shearer took to wearing a lot of these dresses to Hollywood parties just cause she was tickled by how ridiculous they were.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Hollingam]

So she would show up to an event in the Hollywood Hills wearing a gigantic 18th century ball gown.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Maybe not her 110 pound ball gown, but yeah, this was a fun record to research too because I had known, at least I thought I had known what this record was. I had always heard that the Cowardly lion costume from the wizard of Oz was the heaviest film costume. The actor who wore this, you know, he's covered in makeup and hair and weighed down in this costume that reportedly weighed 90 pounds. And just really speaks to the dedication on the part of many of these actors. What they do for their craft often extends beyond just acting. Right. It's also taking on the part and taking on these really heavy costumes.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah.

[Ben Hollingam]

That also goes back to that thing we were saying about definitions where I was trying to decide. I think I decided to be very pure with very kind of narrow. With the definition of what constitutes a costume. With this, I was like. I think just clothes, not. Cause I'm sure there have been horror movie creature getups that have been heavier, but it gets into that confusing sort of no Man's land between costume and prop and special effect. I think I like this one because it is just a really big dress.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah.

[Ben Hollingam]

There's no animatronics in it or anything like that.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. But going off on a little bit of a tangent off of what you just said, because I mentioned that Tom Cruise, Tim Curry, movie legend earlier. Have you seen that movie?

[Ben Hollingam]

I think. No, I don't think I have. I have. This sounds like a very different movie taste in that. I had, as a kid a sort of deep aversion to 80s fantasy movies. I don't know why. They just gave me the fear. I think I might have watched Labyrinth with a migraine when I was, like, seven. And that just.

[Podcast Advertiser]

No.

[Ben Hollingam]

From then on, couldn't cope.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, that's funny. We've had very different childhoods then. But, yeah, I was raised on this trio of movies, as I mentioned. But legend is this epic fantasy film has everything you want. Unicorns, fairies, the devil. But Tim Curry, I can't remember. There has. There probably is a Guinness World Record in here because he is. It's all completely none. This is no special effects in his makeup. He would sit there for, I think, six hours a day getting these massive, huge horns on. And then he wore these huge stilted feet. Then he's painted red. He actually famously does not look back fondly on this experience, but he's massive on screen. Absolutely massive. And it's all. None of it's digital effect. It's all special effect makeup and it's this feat of artistry. So maybe there's a record in there in terms of tallest creature on film or something like that in there.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if nothing else, quite a few of the tallest people in history have had work in films being creatures.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Ben Hollingam]

A lot of the people who are comfortably over seven feet, it's always a reliable source of work. If you can contort yourself in slightly unsettling Ways you have a film career

[Cassidy Zachary]

at your beck and call. So now we talked about wizard of Oz a couple different times. And actually, wizard of Oz is not a record in this particular section, but I argued for it to be one because I argued to amend one of the Guinness World Records, which was most expensive film costume ever sold. And this is cited as Marilyn Monroe's dress from Seven Year Itch, which sold for $4.6 million, I think, which is just remarkable. And then again, wording is everything, right? So I was like, yeah, that one dress cost this much. But did you know how much Dorothy's costume cost? If you take into account all the different versions of the blue and white gingham and the ruby red slippers, because that's. I think it was collectively over $5 million for this one costume.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, that is a record I need to revisit because I know there's been a lot of activity in the kind of movie memorabilia markets. I was updating a bunch of stuff to do with props recently and thinking, yeah, I should get back to that, because I think some of those things have resold recently for even, even higher values.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So, yeah, I think there's something like three or four pairs of the shoes. So obviously, Marilyn Monroe's is probably single most expensive costume ever sold, but then maybe most expensive ever costume ever sold, including multiples, would belong to Dorothy.

[Ben Hollingam]

That is one of those really interesting things as well with those people who collect those things. And when I write about props, it's that thing where people are like, I have the real Han Solo's gun. And it's. Yeah, but Han Solo had eight different guns in different scenes, and some of them were made out of plastic and some of them made out of metal and some. And yeah, and so there's always that question of, yeah, with costumes, you make many of them. And which one is the right one?

[Cassidy Zachary]

Exactly. Which one had the most screen time? Which one was used by the stunt. Your stunt actor. Right, your stunt double. But this actually segues perfectly into another record that did make it into this spread, which is most fabric used in a movie costume, including multiples, which belongs to Cinderella's iconic blue ball gown, as designed by costume designer Sandy Powell, worn by Lily James in Disney's live action 2016 remake of Cinderella. And I actually had the pleasure of informing Sandy Powell in person, because I interviewed her last year for the podcast in a live podcast at. SCAD Fash in Atlanta, said a retrospective of her work. So I got to interview her in person, and she was not aware that she was a Guinness World Record holder or her costume was. And so that was pretty fun. But it took 20 people 4,000 hours to create eight versions of this one dress, of just this one dress in multiples. Right. So that's 273 yards or 250 meters of fabric, which is the size of a football field or soccer field. Multiple football fields and soccer fields. It's a ton of fabric, three miles of thread to hem the dress, and then roughly 10,000 Swarovski crystals hand sewn onto the dress. So it really was a feat of artistry, design, and materials, earning it a place in the Guinness World Record books.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, I do like those. Those things, as you're saying, with the multiples. And you have, oh, this is the dress. But then you're like, yeah, but then you've got to have another dress where, for that bit where she spills wine on herself, and then you have another dress. In this one, I think they had the big hero dress for sweeping into the ballroom. Then they had another one that was slightly shorter so she could dance in it. And there was another one that was slightly shorter still and a little more robust for a scene where she has to run in it. And because they had to do loads and loads of retakes and things would get torn or scuffed or stained and. Yeah, it's an interesting little glimpse into just how much standing around and waiting for things to happen there is in making these films.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, yeah. And you just. It's a remarkable job. I worked in the film industry. I still do. I do commercials and stuff, but I worked in the film industry for a good 12, 13 years. And, yeah, just the amount of work behind the scenes, the things you don't see, the tricks of the trade that costumers use, sometimes you just don't see that the dress is pinned in the back because she doesn't turn around or keeping continuity from one scene to another is another huge thing. But, yeah, it's really fascinating. And it was cool talking to Sandy because she talks about this dress in that interview about just, like, all of the layers, too, that went into it. She needed not just for the width, but also to create the color and the layers of color. So it's a really fascinating dress for a multitude of reasons. And Sandy Powell is a fascinating person. She's also responsible for another record in this section, which is most costume changes in a movie by one character. Robert De Niro changed costumes 102 times for his role as Frank Sheeran in the 2019American epic Gangster film the Irishman, and it spans the 1950s to 2003. And Sandy Powell, along with Christopher Peterson, designed the costumes for this movie. But I also just want to say that it's not surprising that Sandy Powell contributed to not one, but two Guinness World Records in this section, because she is one of the most decorated costume designers in history. I'm sure there's a Guinness World Record in here for her. She has a career spanning 40 years, 50 plus films, and is an officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She has an obe.

[Ben Hollingam]

I just forgot she was English.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She has an amazing 16 BAFTA, British Academy Film Awards, and 15 Academy Award nominations, and she's won three of each. So she's fascinating and she's a perfect segue to talk about the iconic and legendary designer who you highlighted in this section. And I'm, of course, talking about Edith Head. Do you want to tell us about Edith Head and why she appears in the Guinness World Record? She actually has it her own page in this section. Half of the movie costume section is dedicated to Edith Head.

[Ben Hollingam]

It's one of these things where, as you're saying, quite often you get like, you ask a question, you're like, what was the most. This was that. And it's often a very difficult one, particularly in Hollywood, because there's a lot of people will very enthusiastically tell you something and you go, really? And they go, no, of course not. I made that up. And you go, oh, okay. But I remember when I asked you, who's the costume designer? Know who's done the most films? And you were just like, oh, Edith Edd. Yeah, I was like, oh, is there any other. No, Edith Head. Everyone knows that. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. And so I remember going off to the library to do some research and getting hold of Jay Jorgensen's absolutely gigantic book about Edith head. It's like 400 pages and it weighs about five kilos. It's amazing. But that was the inspiration for the design of these pages, because that book includes lots of the wardrobe, I think they're called. What are they called? The sort of. The kind of inventory slips and things like that. And it's just these little forms that have the production number, actress name, details of costume, and there'll be a photo of the performer wearing the costume in a sort of quick visual check. And then there'll be bits of sellotape and pins with fabric swatches.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Costume bibles, we call them.

[Ben Hollingam]

Ah, yeah, yes. And I just thought this was a wonderful little. These fascinating Little working documents with. You can see how they finalized these things and recorded them and in a very practical sense, just made notes of how much they cost and how they made them. But, yeah, I thought that was brilliant and I wanted to try and reproduce some of that element, almost scrapbook like appearance. But yeah, with Edith Head, it was just a remarkable thing of going through and discovering that she did everything.

[Cassidy Zachary]

432 Hollywood productions in a career spanning seven decades, to be exact. She worked, I think, 1925 to 1982.

[Ben Hollingam]

I was about to say the 400 figure is only the ones as a costume designer, isn't it? I think she did another hundred or something as a costumes assistant or costumer.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. She has eight Oscars.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yes. I came across a picture of her with her massive collection of Oscars and her massive collection of miniature sewing machines, which was one of those things where I was like, huh, I wonder if that was a record. Might have been. Apparently she started collecting miniature milliner's sewing machines, what people would give them to her. And she had dozens, hundreds of them. These sort of fantastically ornate little long armed little Singer sewing machines. But they were tiny.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ben Hollingam]

Loads and loads of them.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I'm gonna have to Google that immediately upon. And I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm obsessed with miniature things. Not enough to achieve some sort of Guinness World Record status, although I know there are plenty Guinness World Record holders with miniatures. One of them just popped up on my feed, actually. Someone's like, did you know my mom is a miniatures Guinness World Record holder? And then proceeded to show an entire room filled with miniature tiny things. But miniature sewing machines, I actually did not know was a thing. So I'm going to be looking that up immediately.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, apparently they were very specialized. They're like hat makers, sewing machines. But yes, I found myself just fascinated by the way that she not only made costumes for films, she often dressed the starlets outside of the films. When they had to go to the Oscars or even when they got married, she would make their clothes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yep. That's quite common, actually, because if you think about it, the actresses were an extension of the studio system. So they were part of these huge contracts with these studios. And so when they went out in public, they were still representing the studio. Right. So they were often dressed by the costume designers for their weddings. So, for instance, Grace Kelly's iconic 1956 wedding dress was designed by Helen Rose, who was the costume designer for MGM at that time. It was pretty common and pretty fascinating when you think about it. Okay, there's one more record in this section. I think that that concludes our discussion of the movie costume section. But his most costly movie costume and that accolade belongs with the film, the 1944 film lady in the costume designs by Edith Head for Ginger Rogers. And as the record reads, several famous outfits have been described as, quote, the most expensive ever made. But the most credible candidate, and this is important with qualifying Guinness World Records, right, is it's like this is what we know to be the most credible candidate is a fur trimmed, sequined showgirl ensemble created for Ginger Rogers for this film. It's this beautiful red sequined number. It's long sleeved. And then it has little shorts attached to it. And then it has this grand sweeping train. And I think one of the reasons it's so expensive, there's multiples and different versions of it, but it's lined in front of fur. And what's fascinating too, this was filmed during World War II. So there was a lot of restrictions on dress and fashion and what materials you could and could not use. Fur was not one of those restricted materials, unlike silk. So you could use it freely and they did at great expense. Two versions of this dress were made. A hero costume for static close ups, a lighter multiple for dancing. At a total cost of $35,000. This sum is equivalent to $620,000 in 20, 23 or 491 Euros when adjusted for inflation for this one costume and its multiples. So that's a lot of money.

[Ben Hollingam]

Again, going back to what I was saying about films that have gone wildly off the rails, I think this is one of the most wonderfully fitting examples of that because this was a. It was a kind of wartime series, big wartime musical. But it's a really strange film. As I recall. I watched it to see what the costume looked like in the film. And the scene where the costume appears makes no sense. It's like a dream sequence in which she's in a circus. I think it's baffling and doesn't really fit. And it's a really fascinating thing. Cause the director, I believe, yeah, Mitchell Leeson, was a former costume maker who worked for Edith Head, or worked with Edith Head. I believe I might be getting this wrong. But he, I think, got hold of a film. He was his film. And he got a bit carried away and got Edith Head to help design him the most extravagant costume you could possibly imagine. And yeah, he. The whole thing is it's just Ridiculous. So I think it's in the collection of the VA at the moment, I believe in London. And it is just absolutely wild because it's three parts. It's like a full bodysuit with built in gloves and the gloves are covered in jewels. And it's got a kind of mink fur bolero that's on screen for about five seconds I think before she throws it away. It probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to make but eh. And then there's a skirt that's also covered in jewels and also lined with fur. And it is just. Yeah. The most wonderfully extravagant and bizarre costume. It was interesting actually what you're saying about fur because I was. When I was working on. There's a record, one of the records that didn't quite make the cut, which was me. And you were talking about the most befeathered costume.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes.

[Ben Hollingam]

Cause I learned that in the 1930s Hollywood didn't like fur very much because fur is quite hard to reuse and it gets damaged easily. So if they wanted extravagant and opulent, they used feathers. Cause ostrich feathers can be unstitched and moved around and put on other things and trying to work out what was the most extravagantly befeathered thing. And I think I put forward Ginger Rogers costume from Top Hat.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes, that's right.

[Ben Hollingam]

Which. But you suggested a more modern one. I can't remember which one it was.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I don't know, maybe something from the Fall. The film the Fall. Eiko Ishiaka's design for the fall. She's prolific costume designer. She did Dracula, she did the Cell. But her costumes for that are pretty epic and they're very. There's a lot of really fun materials used in that. So that might have been what I suggested. I don't immediately remember. Yeah, it's funny because part of what we do is a back and forth is let's investigate this record. Let's see if we can find this record. But I have a whole section in my notes that's called inconclusive research.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I have a least amount of costumes in a theater production. And my note is I didn't dive into this too much as we hadn't previously discussed it. But there are several. All nude stage productions which is interesting. And then another record I had was oldest surviving Noh costume. So Japanese Noh theater. So these are all theater records which we did movie costumes for this but. So maybe there will be a future theater costume specific. Oh yes.

[Ben Hollingam]

I've got even more contacts now than I had before, but yes. No, that one is a. It's a great example of a process where you find yourself going. I'm sure there is a record in this. I ended up reading a whole book about the history of the ostrich feather trade and it was really interesting and I lost an entire day of research and didn't actually get any records out of it in the end. But it was a fondo version.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah. I'm sure that the tangent of that is the murderous millinery trade. That's an extra extension of. Right. But ostriches were one of the birds that they didn't actually have to kill to get their feathers, but they did farm them. Not just in the United States, but all over. I feel like southern Africa too. It was a global industry.

[Ben Hollingam]

But yeah, in the end we couldn't find a conclusion how many feathers, other than I found a cost. I think it was. I think Ginger Rogers costume had fifteen hundred dollars worth of feathers, but I couldn't find out how much that was in terms of feathers. I think I actually found myself looking through catalogs trying to work out how many feathers could she have bought for that much.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yeah, we had a whole discussion too, about the costume designs for all the superhero movies because the production costs there. But so again, it's just a never ending foray. And I always just have so much fun collaborating with you and working with you and then having you on the podcast for the second time to discuss this. Ben, thank you so much for joining me again. This is always such a fun time.

[Ben Hollingam]

Yeah, I was happy to be here again and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to talk again soon because then there'll be more things. I'm already making plans for next year's edition of the book, which will be the alarmingly named 2028 edition. Yeah, no, it is always a bit worrying. I generally don't know what year it is on any given time. But yeah, I'm excited for that. I was actually going back through my notes and finding a couple of the things that we decided not to use. I'm like, I really should follow up on that and see if I can make that into a record.

[Cassidy Zachary]

I can't wait. More to come soon, dress listeners.

[April Callahan]

Thank you, Ben. And what a fun and exciting episode, Cass.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Yes. And we ran out of time to discuss it today, but I also worked with Ben on a textile art section for Guinness World Records 2026. So not a lot of my research made the cut, which happens. But what I am most proud of is introducing Ben to another past dress guest Kirsty McLeod, the woman behind the 14 plus year red dress Embroidery Project, which dress listeners you have heard me singing the praises of for years now. And I am so pleased to share that the Red Dress now holds a Guinness World Record as the largest collaborative embroidery project with 380 individuals from around the world embroidering on this one dress which stands as a potent reminder about our shared humanity and the storytelling capabilities of the clothes we wear.

[April Callahan]

It is also such a beautiful reminder that as fun as Guinness World Records is, there is so much more at the center of it. There are these incredible people and the stories that go into each and every one of these records.

[Cassidy Zachary]

So many records, so so little time, dress listeners. So you just have to get your hands on this year's Guinness World Record Book to learn all about the amazing feats happening around the world. Or better yet, try to set one yourself and let us know what and how you did.

[April Callahan]

That does it for us today. Dress listeners, may you consider what fashion related Guinness World Record you might like to complete next time you get dressed? Please head to restpodcast on Instagram or rest podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.

[Cassidy Zachary]

And remember, we always love hearing from you, so if you'd like to write to us, you can do so at. Hello DressedHistory.com DressedHistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses. And you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves we get.

[April Callahan]

We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show Notes to our Bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop dressed and there you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles and

[Cassidy Zachary]

do you love Dressed but want to skip the ads? You can now sign up for ad free listings listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon.

[April Callahan]

We are also excited to now be part of the Airwave Network and their premium ad free history subscription Airwave History plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dressed and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just 5.99 per month. More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.

[Cassidy Zachary]

Thank you as always for tuning in and more dressed coming your way very soon. The History of Fashion is a production of dress media.