Catherine Martin (designer)
Catherine Martin Luhrmann is an Australian costume designer, production designer, set designer, and film producer, best known for her frequent collaborations with director Baz Luhrmann. She has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, six BAFTA Awards, and a Tony Award. Martin was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2025.
Martin came to international prominence for providing both the costumes and production design on Strictly Ballroom, Luhrmann's feature directorial debut which later became the first installment of the "Red Curtain Trilogy". She won both the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and the Academy Award for Best Production Design for her work on Curtain's final chapter Moulin Rouge!. Martin became just the second woman to win multiple Oscars in a single year and the first to accomplish this feat twice, winning the same two categories for The Great Gatsby. She was also Oscar-nominated for Romeo + Juliet, Australia, and Elvis. Having won four awards out of nine nominations, she holds the record for the most Oscar wins of any Australian.
Early life and education
Martin was born on January 26, 1965, in Lindfield, New South Wales, to a French mother and an Australian father, both academics who met at the Sorbonne; her father was pursuing his expertise in 18th-century French literature, and her mother was studying mathematics at university. She and her brother grew up in Sydney but spent a lot of time with their grandparents in France's Loire Valley, visiting "every art gallery, every museum" along the way. Martin was fascinated from an early age by the vintage clothing parades occasionally thrown by her Australian grandmother and her church friends. She would beg her parents to take her to London's Victoria and Albert Museum so she could dig through the costume section, and recalled "being blown away by the costume gallery, being able to see a pleated lace ruff in reality" when she finally got there. Her mother taught her to use a sewing machine at age 6, and by age 15 she was creating her own patterns to make herself dresses. Martin cited The Wizard of Oz as her childhood inspiration and an extraordinary journey to take when she was 10, and then Gone with the Wind as the movie that, at age 13, changed her life from a fashion perspective.Martin attended North Sydney Girls High School and, while a student, got a part-time job as an usherette at the Roseville theatre. She was first enrolled at Sydney College of the Arts and spent a year studying the visual arts before deciding to drop out for a career change. Then she studied pattern cutting at East Sydney Technical College. She was accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Art and graduated in 1988 with a diploma in design. In her last year at university, she met and started collaborating with a fellow student, Baz Luhrmann, whom she later married. At that time, Luhrmann returned to NIDA looking for young designers with whom he planned to stage his one-act play, Strictly Ballroom, and Martin did some work on that production.
Career
Martin's first professional engagement came after graduation when she began working on Luhrmann's environmental opera experiment, Lake Lost, staged at a television studio in Melbourne to celebrate the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. Their collaboration continued at Opera Australia when she provided set designs for Luhrmann's 1990 production of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème as well as the 1993 production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.Martin gained international acclaim when she entered the film industry, recreating her designs in Luhrmann's feature directorial debut, Strictly Ballroom, the first part of the "Red Curtain Trilogy". It was a major financial success and received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences, who lauded the acting, direction, and production values. Among other accolades, the film cleaned up at the AFI Awards, picking up leading eight wins from 13 nominations and also winning three of its eight nominations at the BAFTAs, including both the Best Costume Design and the Best Production Design for Martin's visuals. She then received her first Oscar nomination for art direction in the trilogy's second installment, Romeo + Juliet.
Their third feature film collaboration which concluded Curtain's Trilogy was Moulin Rouge!. She earned both the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and the Academy Award for Best Production Design for her richly designed sets and dazzling costumes, which received widespread recognition from critics and audiences alike.
She shared the former prize with Angus Strathie, the latter with Brigitte Broch. Martin's double wins makes her just the second woman to win multiple Oscars in a single year, after fellow costume designer Edith Head.
For their next project together, the pair teamed up adaptating Luhrmann's earlier Australian production of La bohème for Broadway theatre, which opened to critical acclaim in December 2002. She won the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design and, alongside Strathie, was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Costume Design the following year.
Martin went to co-produce Luhrmann's epic Australia and was also the film's production and costume designer. It earned her another Oscar nomination. She has stated that the tailoring on the clothing produced for the film is one of her proudest achievements.
''The Great Gatsby''
Luhrmann and Martin started working on the cinematic reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, The Great Gatsby, a novel that she had not read since adolescence and had not much appreciated as a teenager. Nevertheless, Martin ended up being the book's biggest fan after her husband's insistence that she revisit it. Luhrmann thought about doing a new film version for about a decade, although he began writing a script only three years before actual filming started. For their ambitious purpose of trying to achieve an authentic feeling for the film but also something connective for a modern audience, the pair consulted academic texts about the novel as well as historical analyses pertaining to both Fitzgerald and his work. In particular, they went to libraries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fashion Institute of Technology to further their research on the project. Martin described herself during this time as being "like a detective".Overall, Martin was charged with creating about 500 outfits for various cast members. She collaborated with Brooks Brothers and Miuccia Prada to design the costumes, as well as Tiffany & Co., which agreed to supply the film's jewelry. In particular, Prada created some twenty dresses for the film's first party scene as well as an additional twenty for the second one. Before filming started, Luhrmann said that since the book took place in 1922 and was published in 1925 but foreshadowed the economic crash of 1929, anything within that decade was appropriate to borrow for design purposes. This approach gives Martin more room to play with trends and flattering pieces, such as her choice to dress lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio in slimmer-cut suits, a decision that otherwise would not be typical for the time period in which the depicted events are taking place. Furthermore, she erred towards the decade's end for women's clothes, wanting to focus on slimmer silhouettes. She also took artistic liberties when it came to the actresses' footwear, telling Vogue that she found heels from the era to be "stumpy". Martin rationalized her anachronistic use of thinner-heeled shoes by telling herself she was copying what was found in fashion illustrations from the time.
Martin created a total of 42 lavish sets for the film, which all were constructed under her vision in a span of 14 weeks. Her inspiration came from the works of 1920s British designer Syrie Maugham as well as the iconic turn-of-the-century houses on Long Island, such as Beacon Towers for Gatsby's mansion and Old Westbury Gardens for the Buchanans' estate. She also gave credit to the 1920s silent film designs, particularly those of Sunrise and Speedy, for inspiring Gatsby's high-gloss Art Deco visual style.
Martin once again received universal acclaim for creating film's visuals, winning her two more Oscars for both Best Costume Design and Best Production Design, the latter of which she shares with Beverley Dunn. Having won her fourth career Academy Award, she claimed the record for the most Oscar wins of any Australian, overtaking fellow costume designer Orry-Kelly, who won three in the 1950s.
Shortly after the release of Gatsby, Martin collaborated with Brooks Brothers to release a limited edition menswear collection. She has also launched a range of home wares, featuring paints, wallpaper and rugs.
Other ventures
In 1997, Martin and Luhrmann founded a production company to manage their various creative projects.Martin was named a Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year in 2013. Discussing her and Luhrmann's progression as artists, Marin told the magazine, "We've gone from me staying up all night to paint the floor to where I am now, with 300 carpenters working for me. I feel like the Queen of England". For her spread in their December issue, her husband photographed her alongside their children.
Martin's work was featured in fellow costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis' 2013 book Hollywood Costume.
Martin has stated that she prides herself on ensuring the costumes she produces are beautifully made, comfortable, and easy to take on and off. She also said that she is no longer tempted to keep any wardrobe mementos from the films she works on, telling Fashionista, "... I realised through long and hard experience the best record of your work, is the work itself."
In 2016, Martin and Luhrmann developed the Netflix television series The Get Down, which takes place in 1970s South Bronx. She served as an executive producer of the series.
Personal life
Martin met her husband, Baz Luhrmann, at university, and the pair married on Australia Day 1997, her 32nd birthday. The couple has two children together. In July 2015, the couple placed their Darlinghurst mansion on the market for $16 million AUD, in favour of establishing a more settled family life in New York City, where their family has been spending more and more time.Awards and nominations
;Major associationsAcademy Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
| 1997 | Best Production Design | Romeo + Juliet | Nomitated | |
| 2002 | Best Costume Design | Moulin Rouge! | Won | |
| 2002 | Best Production Design | Moulin Rouge! | Won | |
| 2009 | Best Costume Design | Australia | Nomitated | |
| 2014 | Best Costume Design | The Great Gatsby | Won | |
| 2014 | Best Production Design | The Great Gatsby | Won | |
| 2023 | Best Picture | Elvis | Nomitated | |
| 2023 | Best Costume Design | Elvis | Nomitated | |
| 2023 | Best Production Design | Elvis | Nomitated |
BAFTA Awards
Tony Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
| 2003 | Best Costume Design | La bohème | Nomitated | |
| 2003 | Best Scenic Design | La bohème | Won |
;Miscellaneous awards
;Honorary degrees
| School | Year | Degree | |
| University of Sydney | 2025 | Doctor of Letters |
Other honours
- Martin was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 for service to Australian society and Australian film production.
- Martin was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours for "eminent service to the arts, to costume, production and set design, and to fostering emerging artistic talent."