10 Amazing Costume Designs From Mediocre Films

It's about time to stop blaming Shyamalan for everything terrible about The Last Airbender, since his passion for the project that was rife with executive interference was what kept it from breaking down. It was, however, still a terrible film for many reasons, though whoever was building the world in terms of costume design was no slouch.

While the casting was questionable, especially in the area of the whitewashed water tribe, the designs of each nation's clothing, from textile to colour to pattern and silhouette, made for striking and appropriate visual cues for each distinct elemental culture, fantastical yet grounded in its craft.

The best examples come from the Water Tribes, with subtle yet effective pattern work on their clothing and the vividness of their blues depending on their station, and the effectively threatening forces of the Fire Nation with their intimidating silhouettes, and the use of black, gold and red meshing with the metals and patterns, cloth and fur that distinguish them from other nations.

Judianna Makovsky carried a lot of this film's gravitas in her costume design - unsurprising, given that she's worked on other Hollywood juggernauts such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Avengers: Endgame, to name a few.