Hunger Games Fashion: Effie Trinket Dresses From Alexander McQueen

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If you’re partial to the fashion worth of certain movies, you should definitely try watching Hunger Games. Eventually try re-watching it while focusing only on the fashion! It deserves a lot of attention!

There’s something about the Hollywood movie industry that can be summarized in just a couple of ideas about fashion, usually out of context, character-oriented and flabbergasting. As if, in the handful of scenes of a movie, the character in question has to throw everything in the game, fashion-wise and in any other way.

Take Elizabeth Banks’ Hunger Games character, Effie Trinket for instance – her Capitol fashion is beyond outstanding: it’s downright outrageous!

Her name alone, Effie, is short for Euphemia, Greek for ‘All-Praised’ and while she’s representing one of the poorest Districts, the 12th, Effie’s style is just as overwhelming as she seems overwhelmed herself. But that’s not an issue for fashion concern. It’s an emotion worth speculating and Trish Summervile, the movie’s stylist (and one of Hollywood’s favorite stylists at the moment), knew exactly how to do that: by dressing Effie in McQueen.

See also: Trish Summerville costumes designer for Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and H&M collection

No less than four different exquisite outfits from Alexander McQueen were in Effie Trinket’s Victory Tour wardrobe! My absolute favorite – and I’ll start by showing just that one, regardless of its order of appearance in the actual movie – is the Monarch Butterfly McQueen dress she so contrastingly wore with Iris van Herpen thorn soled boots from the Spring 2012 collection.

Part of the Spring Summer 2011 collection, this dress/outstanding piece of fashion is closely related to the Trinket’s emotional evolution. There’s little to be said about that evolution without being a spoiler, so I’ll just concentrate on the fashion side of the story and admire the beauty and the contrasting colorfulness of Effie’s dress during a reaping ceremony. Notice her golden hair, thus affiliating herself to Katniss’s gold Mocking jay pin symbolism.

The pink dress Effie is wearing also in the poster art for this Hunger Games Catching Fire chapter is yet another McQueen masterpiece, from the Fall Winter 2012 collection. In fact, Trish Summerville was so enchanted by this particular segment of McQueen fashion, designed by Lee McQueen’s successor, Sarah Burton, that she chose not one but three dresses for Effie’s wardrobe from that particular collection!

See also: Effie Trinket’s Hunger Games Catching Fire Poster dress

The pink fluffy one is joined in Effie’s closet by a soft lavender gown – just as fluffy and impressive, with equally matching hair. Notice the cumbersome walk on the stone drivepath in those impressive hoof-like shoes designed by the house of McQueen! Just as comfy as Iris van Herpen’s thorny boots. I imagine this is Trish Summerville’s way of showing how sensitive are Effie’s matters in this episode but also how ridiculous are Capitol’s fashion ways and more.

See also: the challenging McQueen shoes from the said 2012 collection

Both the pink hued and the lavender-ish wigs were worn by Effie Trinket in the first half of the movie, where she was so Capitol-infused that she looked more like a lifeless cartoon doll. To contrast that, her appearance in the second half of Catching Fire is incomparably more human and integrated in the present situation.

See more: from McQueen’s Fall 2012 collection

And then, there’s the black and white, fur-collared outfit Effie wears at the beginning of the Victory Tour. As I said above, a design from the Fall 2012 McQueen collection, intricate but not as spectacular as the others. I’m keeping this story open as I’m certain there will be more interesting facts to add from this and the next episodes of Hunger Games. If you have any notes or observations on the matter, please do share! (the images included here come from imdb.com/lionsgate and style.com)