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If you watched the 2013 Oscars, you might have seen the fantastic tribute to a genre near and dear to my heart: that grand, spectacular thing called the movie musical. While there’s nothing quite as breathtaking as the experience of live theatre, musical films offer a different perspective and tend to have much more leeway when it comes to lavish sets and costumes. (Or, in the case of Sweeney Todd, lavish buckets of shockingly bright fake blood.)

Tim Burton’s 2007 cinematic take on Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has a star-studded cast that includes Captain Jack Sparrow, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter Pettigrew, and Gellert Grindelwald. (I think you know what I mean.) The film’s costumes, designed by Oscar winner and frequent Tim Burton collaborator Colleen Atwood, feature a dark, dreary palette (making the blood stand out that much more) and a very stylized take on Victorian clothing.

Love movie musicals? Check out previous CF articles on Les Miserables fashion, Chicago fashion, and Rent fashion.

Table of Contents

Try a Little Priest: About Sweeney Todd

• The story of this vengeful barber and his pie-baking partner has been around in varied incarnations since 1846, when the bloody tale of Sweeney Todd became a standard subject for Victorian melodramas.
• Stephen Sondheim’s musical production, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opened on Broadway in 1979 and won 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury originated the roles of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett.
• The tale begins when Benjamin Barker, an innocent barber, is sent to an Australian penal colony because the evil Judge Turpin lusts after his wife Lucy and wants to get Barker out of the way.
• Fifteen years later, Barker returns to London, a hardened and bitter man who now calls himself Sweeney Todd. His former neighbor, pie shop proprietress Mrs. Lovett, informs him that his wife poisoned herself after his disappearance and laments the high cost of meat for pie-making.
• After Sweeney kills a former rival, Mrs. Lovett suggests that they dispose of the body by utilizing it in her pies. Between Sweeney’s tendency to murder his clients after giving them a shave and the immense popularity of the new meat pies, the shop quickly becomes extremely successful.
• However, Sweeney’s quest for vengeance against the judge turns into a vendetta against all humanity. What happened then, well that’s the play, and he wouldn’t want me to give it away. So if you haven’t yet, watch Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street!

Outfits Inspired by Sweeney Todd:

The Worst Pies in London

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3