costumes

BOBBIE MANNIX (Costume Designer) is quickly making the transition from a commercial and video costume designer to the small and big screen.
She has been instrumental in creating a costuming "look" for a plethora of bands and their music videos, including The Fugees, Bush, Puff Daddy, Luis Migel, Spice Girls and M-People. On the commercial front Mannix' credits range from cutting edge Coca-Cola spots to Pacific Bell. Her additional clients include Cadillac, American Express, Levi 501, Mercedes Benz, Hallmark, Burger King, Pepsi and AT&T.

Mannix served as costume designer for television series and MOW's including: Tomorrow Man for FOX Television; Christmas in Connecticut for TNT; Dirty Dancing for CBS; and The Renegades for Paramount TV.

Mannix feature film credits include: Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love; Joe Hanwright's Uncle Joe Shannon; Walter Hill's The Warriors; Robert Greenwald's Xanadu; and Walter Hill's The Long Riders.

Mannix is currently working with several commercial directors and lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Click here for Bobbie Mannix official website.

From the moment they stepped out of the mural, the Muses' costumes were very distictive. With soft pastels, earthy tones and prints and flowing fabrics, Kira's Muse costume, as well as the costumes for the other Muses' were a mass of chiffon and silk fabrics.
Bobbie Mannix, the costume designer did a lot of research into Greek mythology before designing a single outfit. "Kira and her sisters are the nine daughters of Zeus, Goddesses of music, poetry and art. Then Mannix updated the myth, adapting Toga like draping usually associated with Helenic figures into contemporary attire."
"Mannix wanted to keep a breezy looking, flowing look to the Muses' costumes-"anything that a dancer has to wear has to flow, move smoothly."
"She was also motivated to create a frilly, soft look, since she feels that bringing back really "feminine clothing is important."
The Muse costumes presentes a special problem to the movie's designers. Especially the mural scene. As the scene was filmed in front of a blue screen, the fabric for the gowns had to be solid enough that the blue screen could not come through it, spoiling the effect. Therefore, Chiffon was the fabric chosen to give the dresses a flowing look. The dresses were an array of french silk in pastel prints and colors. The necklines were mainly an off the shoulder look and many of the dresses had layers of soft chiffon and sometimes finished with leg warmers, ballet shoes or roller skates.

For the finale, Bobbie Mannix had a challenge, having to create not six different costumes for Kira, but nine similar costumes for her sisters as well.
For the Rock-N-Roll number, Kira wore a leather, faux print vest and matching mini skirt, with a black-t-shirt and black patent leather boots.
The Cowgirl costume is a white, heavily fringed jacket that is very long. It is topped off with a white cowgirl hat and white leather boots.
The furturistic costume consists of a shiny type material, most likely lame' or a shiny satin in a metallic rust color. It has a electric blue trim. It is a kimono style pattern and is topped off with a shiny blue, foil wig.

Kira had many styles of costumes during the course of the movie. One the them was a brown female Army outfit. This was used in the "Whenever You're Away From Me" number with Kira and Danny Maguire. The next is a sparkling disco suit It's in the traditional Disco style. Flared pants and a very low cut top made of brown fabric that is heavily beaded and trimmed with brown and gold metallic ribbon. It's accesorized with a shiny belt and a brown and gold plaid chiffon trims the waist and legs. Gold shoes complete the outfit.
The Tap dancing outfit is reminicent of a 1940's cigarette girl with fushia colored satin top, with a black bow tie and black shorts and black ribbon-tied tap shoes make the outfit.
For the scene where Kira appears on the Television, a 1940's maribou trimmed robe was used with a 40's sweeped up do with finger wave curls. For the finale, Kira can be seen in the Xanadu waitress uniform which consists of a bright yellow jacket with yellow satin lining and large gold buttons, a black skirt and a black hat with gold trim.

There were some costumes seen by Olivia in certain scenes in the movie and I am unsure whether they were from cut scenes or just clothes worn by Olivia. The first one is of Olivia in a small white skirt and tube top, the second one was of Kira singing the Xanadu finale number wearing a stripped black and red outfit, this must have been from an alternate version. The picture of three Olivia's wearing pink 40's gowns I believe was just a publicity photo.

Sonny's costumes were fairly basic. Mostly just brown vests, white and blue shirts and jeans. There were a few different costumes for his character however. The painting smock, the red Hawaiian shirt and the Xanadu jacket were two of the few different costume's he wore.

Gene Kelly had almost as many costume changes for Xanadu as Olivia. In fact, his character Danny Maguire had a different outfit for almost every scene. When we first see Danny, he is dressed in a classy beige beach outfit. With a beige sweater, khaki pants and a white shirt, the outfit is accented with a scarf and hat. Later, we see Danny dressed in suits, one grey and the next one, a darker grey wool suit with brown tie, which he wears in the "Whenever you're away from me" number.
The scene which Gene has the most costume changes is "All over the world" number where Danny is sent to "A Franchise Glitz Dealer" to spruce up his wardrobe. For this number, Gene has seven different costumes, with everything from a pink zootsuit, to a fringed cowboy suit to a green lesuire suit.
For the Xanadu finale, Gene is dressed in a classic tuxedo. Gene Kelly brings a touch of class to everything he wears.

Kira's nine sisters had to have basically the same types of costumes that their sister had. Their muses' costumes were the same chiffon and french silk costumes as Kira and many of their outfits reflected the same outfit as Kira's. For the finale tap dancing outfit, the sisters had basically the same pink satin tops and black skirts. For their rock and roll numbers, while Kira wears a miniskirt and t-shirt, her sisters wear tiger print jumpsuits.
For the fantasy finale, the sisters outfits differ from Kira's. Their outfits are white layered dresses with gold metallic trim and triangular hats.