Lindy Hemming

Hemming was born on 21 August 1948, in Haverfordwest, Wales.^[1] She is the eldest of five children in the family. Her mother was a teacher who could draw, design, and make clothes, mostly converting children's hand-me-downs. Her father was a salesman and often worked as a woodcarver. She was brought up bilingually from an early age, speaking Welsh at school and English at home.^[2]

Hemming never considered design a profession nor even attended art school because her father convinced her that she should pursue a "worthwhile" job for a living. Having trained as an orthopaedic nurse instead, she later discovered that this experience was helpful in her career because it required working closely with people and observing and listening to them.^[2]

She eventually enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), being encouraged by the example of friends. Hemming initially intended to study stage management; however, she switched her major to design soon afterward.^[2]

Hemming began her professional career at London's Open Space Theatre, where she performed multitask duties and often operated on a limited budget, a commitment that lasted for over a decade. She also worked for several years at the Hampstead Theatre Club.^[2] During that time, Hemming met many prominent directors, such as Michael Rudman, Alan Ayckbourn, Trevor Nunn, Richard Eyre, Howard Davies, and Nancy Meckler, who frequently asked her about collaboration on bigger-scale productions.^[2] She consequently made various designs for some of the biggest companies on the British stage and, at one point, had five London shows running simultaneously; those include productions for the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the West End.^[2] She also worked on Broadway and received a Tony Award for Best Costume Design nomination for the 1983 production of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well.^[3]

Beside her well-established theater career, Hemming is known for her prolific work on several high-profile film productions across independent films and blockbusters. In particular, she has had frequent collaborations with English auteur Mike Leigh on some of his most critically acclaimed films. She garnered great critics' praise and won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her lavishly detailed recreation of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 production of The Mikado in Leigh's 1999 period musical Topsy-Turvy.^[4] Hemming has also enjoyed the long-standing association with the James Bond film series, as she has designed the franchise's attire for more than a decade, starting from GoldenEye (1995) through Casino Royale (2006).^[1] Two of these pieces, which were featured in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), have been presented among other memorabilia in a special Bond-related exhibition at the Miami Auto Museum at the Dezer Collection.

Hemming achieved further critical acclaim for providing the costumes in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012).^[1] She won the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Fantasy Film and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design for her work in the series' second installment, 2008's The Dark Knight.

Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

Tony Awards

• Lindy Hemming at IMDb