Team Experience will be discussing each Oscar category as we head into the precursors. Here’s Cláudio Alves and Elisa Giudici with a conversation on Best Costume Design… 

“Babylon” | © Paramount Pictures

CLÁUDIO: Just as we’re starting this conversation, I see my TL full of early reactions to Babylon, which was screened at long last. It still feels too soon to predict how the movie will do, whether critically or in the awards race, but it’ll be polarizing. Some love it, some hate it, and the same singular elements have been recipients of both praise and loathing. With all this in mind, we can consider Babylon‘s chances in the Best Costume Design category. Honestly, at this point in the season, it feels like one of only two locks in the race…

Mary Zophres is a three-time nominee with a long career behind her, characterized by a creative partnership with the Coen brothers that has lasted since Fargo, way back in 1996. She’s also a favorite of Spielberg and now Damien Chazelle, with whom she previously worked on La La Land and First Man. While I am a Zophres fan and would love to be excited about her possible Oscar glory, that trailer and those first stills do not inspire confidence. I realize I may be too stuck on notions of historical accuracy, but it’s hard to grasp the purpose of stylistic choices that make Margot Robbie look more akin to a coked-out starlet of the 1980s than a silent movie ‘it girl.’ But, of course, it…