1958–present
Ngila Dickson
Ngila Dickson, a native of Dunedin, came to film from a magazine editor's desk and the fashion world: her first credit as a costume designer was a 1989 television film. She dressed the characters of “Xena” and “Hercules”, and from 1999 worked on “The Lord of the Rings” with Richard Taylor. She won an Academy Award for “The Return of the King”.
Biography
The first production for which Ngila Dickson was responsible for costumes was the television film “The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy” (1989). Before that she had worked as a magazine editor, a stylist and a fashion designer.
She was born in 1958 in Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand. The exact date of birth is unknown, only the year. Little is known about her childhood and schooling, and I will not guess at them. All we can say is that she came to film already experienced in fashion and journalism.
A few years later came her work with the director Peter Jackson: in 1994 she made the costumes for his “Heavenly Creatures”. Television work ran alongside. From 1995 to 1999 Dickson designed costumes for the series about Hercules and for “Xena: Warrior Princess”, both filmed in New Zealand. “Xena” alone ran to ninety episodes, which means hundreds of costumes for imaginary warrior women, gods and barbarians. In those years and later her list also included smaller films for cinema and television: “My Grandpa Is a Vampire”, “The Rainbow Warrior” (1993) and “Mysterious Island”.
In 1999 she was invited to work on “The Lord of the Rings”. She designed the costumes for the trilogy (2001–2003) together with Richard Taylor, and they shared most of the awards and nominations for the project. For the first part, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, she received an Academy Award nomination in 2002. For “The Two Towers” she won a BAFTA Award in 2003. Dickson won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 2004 for “The Return of the King”. The same year she was also nominated for an Academy Award for Edward Zwick’s “The Last Samurai”, but there the statuette went to someone else. The Costume Designers Guild also honoured her in 2004 for the last part of the trilogy.
She worked with Zwick again later, on “Blood Diamond” (2006). Among her other films are “The Illusionist” (2006), “Fool’s Gold” (2008), “The International” (2009), “Green Lantern” (2011), “Emperor” (2012), “Dracula Untold” (2014), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” (2016) and “Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019).
In 2004 Dickson was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to design and the film industry. In 2008 the Arts Foundation of New Zealand gave her its Laureate Award. She lives in Auckland.
Profile notes