by Alexander Ballinger (Author)
The extraordinary story of costume designer Phyllis Dalton, filled with insights, recollections, and revelations from a life spent on the great film locations of the twentieth century
In conversation with film historian Alexander Ballinger, Phyllis Dalton (1925-2025) reveals how she created some of the silver screen's most unforgettable and iconic costumes, working with such legendary directors as Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, a woman in a man's world.
The book spans Dalton's extraordinary fifty-year career in the film industry, from sewing in Soho workrooms on Laurence Olivier's
Henry V via intelligence work at Bletchley Park; apprenticeship at Gainsborough Studios to designing costumes on
The Man Who Knew Too Much; the epic undertakings of costuming
Lawrence of Arabia,
Doctor Zhivago (Oscar, Best Costume Design), and
Oliver!; through to cult classics
A Private Function and
The Princess Bride to her successful late collaboration with a young Kenneth Branagh on
Henry V (Oscar, Best Costume Design),
Dead Again, and
Much Ado About Nothing.
Many of the book's illustrations, sourced from Dalton's personal archive, showcase unique ephemera, fabric swatches, production stills, large format pencil-and-watercolour sketches, and production notebooks from six decades of filmmaking. Many of these stunning images, including Dalton's personal on-location photographs from the
Lawrence of Arabia shoot, have never been published before.
Distributed for Clapperboard Books
Author Biography
Alexander Ballinger is a film historian and author of New Cinematographers and The Rough Guide to Film Noir.
Number of Pages: 320
Dimensions: 1.38 x 11.19 x 9.29 IN
Publication Date: January 06, 2026
