Costumes from Three Thousand Years of Longing

Australian director George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) is an extravagant visual feast. When academic Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) finds a Djinn (Idris Elba) trapped in a bottle, he tells her rich tales spanning thousands of years of history, from the Queen of Sheba to the court of Sultan Suleiman to present-day England.

Costumes are critical to bringing the fantastical film’s locations and time periods to life, helping colour the world and lend authenticity to the story. These Persian general and soldier costumes appear during an epic battle led by Sultan Murad, helping the audience recognise the characters and their alliances among the chaos. They were designed by Kym Barrett, who has worked on costumes for stage and screen, including Cirque du Soleil, The Matrix (1999), and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).