Palace Costume: Inside Hollywood’s Best Kept Fashion Secret is a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at Palace Costume & Prop Co., the legendary Los Angeles archive that has supplied costumes, accessories, and props to Hollywood for more than fifty years. Named a Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2024, this richly illustrated volume opens the doors to one of the film industry’s most closely guarded creative resources.

Founded and curated by Melody Barnett, Palace Costume is a 30,000-square-foot collection housing over half a million garments, gowns, accessories, and jewelry. Barnett’s journey began in the early 1970s with a vintage boutique that attracted icons like Diana Ross and Joni Mitchell. Her passion for preserving these pieces led her to transform the business into a to-the-trade-only rental archive, ensuring that historic fashion could be carefully maintained and reused on screen.

Over the decades, Palace Costume has contributed to hundreds of classic films, including Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, and The Godfather. This book features interviews by Mimi Haddon with more than a dozen Academy Award–winning costume designers, paired with film stills that highlight their selections from the archive. Designers such as Sandy Powell, Ruth E. Carter, Arianne Phillips, Shirley Kurata, Mary Zophres, and Mark Bridges share firsthand stories about Palace Costume’s essential role in bringing historic and contemporary characters to life.

Photographed by Mimi Haddon, the book showcases more than 300 vibrant and stylized images of Palace Costume’s vintage treasures. Part visual archive and part inspirational look-book, Palace Costume is a must-have for fashion lovers, costume designers, stylists, vintage enthusiasts, and film fans alike.

Product Details

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Chroma
• Publication Date: September 10, 2024
• Print Length: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 1797228854
• ISBN-13: 978-1797228853
• Item Weight: 2.1 lbs
• Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.75 x 8.3 inches