Gladiator

This is the imperial battle armour worn by Joaquin Phoenix for his Oscar nominated role as Commodus in the Roman epic Gladiator. The movie was released in the spring of 2000 to good box office figures, critical acclaim and 5 Academy Awards.

This elaborate white armour was used in the final Coliseum scenes of the movie as the nefarious character who, being the villain, had to cheat a little, finally kills off our hero Maximus (Russell Crowe). Commodus does get his just rewards though as Crowe despatches him too with one last final effort.

The costume was designed by Janty Yates who won an Oscar for her efforts. The armour pieces are made of leather with resin figures and decorations added to the front. These emblems were supposed to represent the characters personal history, with significant events captured there for all time. This theme was a little more noticeable with Russell Crowe’s armour which changed during the film as the story progressed. The under garments are made from silk.

The Phoenix costume was originally designed to be a more traditional brown colour but after the input of director Ridley Scott on seeing the costume it was decided to make it a more distinguished white colour. This was ultimately done by simply painting the costume with white acrylic.

This costume has been displayed on a floating style mannequin with a sandy “coliseum floor” effect to the base.