From left: The costume designer after winning for Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006; To the Vogue World: Hollywood launch event, Colleen Atwood brought her fire-scorched Oscar, which the Academy has replaced. Frank Micelotta/Getty Images; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment When the Palisades Fire tore through Pacific Palisades last year, it didn't just destroy Colleen Atwood's home. It melted three of her Academy Awards and badly damaged a fourth - a surreal, devastating footnote to one of the most decorated careers in Hollywood costume design. A costume designer whose work has helped define the look of modern studio filmmaking, Atwood has collaborated for decades with such filmmakers as Tim Burton, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Demme, creating looks for films including Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Alice in Wonderland and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Then came the fire. The blaze consumed her beloved Aderno Way house, along with nearly everything inside it. In the aftermath, Atwood was left with a single scorched statuette that she affectionately refers to as her "crispy critter." Related Stories News After Burn: Has Hollywood Already Forgotten the Fires? Movies Costume Designers Guild Awards Nominations: 'Weapons,' 'Sinners,' 'Tron: Ares' Among Film Nominees Her loss was personal, but of course it was also part of something much larger. The twin Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed more than 12,000 properties across Los Angeles, upending the lives of thousands of residents - famous and unfamous alike - including the homes of Mel Gibson, Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, Rosie O'Donnell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Miles Teller, Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton, Diane Warren, Anna Faris, Eugene Levy, Anthony Hopkins, Joshua Jackson and Ricki Lake, among many others. Along the way, the fires spawned their own shorthand. One burned Oscar image briefly went viral online - an AI fake, it turned out - but Atwood's damage was the real thing. And not all Oscars, it turns out, are created equal, with older statues made from softer alloys melting faster than the bronze versions cast more recently. A year later, all of Atwood's Academy Awards have been replaced, but she is far from recovered. On the eve of the one year anniversary of the L.A. wildfires, The Hollywood Reporter checked in with Atwood to find out how she's doing and what's become of her hardware. How are you doing a year later? It's still depressing. I'm in the rebuilding process now with my house. I have plans and I'm trying to figure out what materials to use. It's daunting. I am used to doing a lot of different things but I've never built a house. The financial side of it is scary, too, because it's not been a great year for the industry. I'm OK but so many others have been impacted by the changes within our business. You can try to look forward but there's not a lot of comfort coming your way. What is most worrisome? City officials say that they are going to expedite this or that, in terms of helping with permits and the rebuilding process. But it doesn't feel like it's moving all that fas. There's been the first wave of people who have really gotten on it, and they are permitted or at least close. But there are others of us who have had to jump through more hoops. The permitting process is going to hit all at once, and that will be overwhelming for the City of Los Angeles. Then to find out about how the fire started, and that we didn't have water in the reservoir is...it's like the emperor's new clothes. As an honest taxpayer, you pay taxes all your life only to find out that there's no water in the well. There are so many things you discover that bring up anger and frustration, and that's beyond the day-to-day of life. I've been living in the same place for the last year and I just found out that the house is going on the market so I have to move again. How long did you live in the house on Aderno Way? I moved in there in 1994. I move so much for my work that I'm not a person who wanted to move into a house just to flip it and move on. I'm not that person. You've created many iconic moments on screen with your work. Did you lose any of your archive? I lost a certain amount of it but I have a storage unit in the [San Fernando Valley] so it wasn't totally destroyed. I had some personal documentation, photographs, presents from different jobs, all of that is gone. But my archive survived which is great. And the awards? I saw that you brought your Oscar to the Vogue World: Hollywood launch event at Chateau Marmont... I did. My crispy critter. What happened to it? Did the Academy replace it? They did. The Academy replaced the statues and they were the first to do so. The Academy and BAFTA were both really great when I reached out, and the Emmys were replac