Dressing a Spy in Plain Sight and Many Robert Downey Jrs. in “The Sympathizer”
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel “The Sympathizer” won the Pulitzer Prize and was subsequently adapted into a miniseries by showrunners Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, a historical black comedy now airing on HBO. The show follows the journey of the Captain (Hoa Xuande), a communist operative working as a mole in South Vietnam’s army who ...
The Sartorial Feast of Feudal Japan with “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario – Part Two
In Part One of our conversation with costume designer Carlos Rosario, we talked about the monumental effort his team went through to research, design, and handmake 2,300 costumes for FX Networks’ gripping historical saga. We continue the discussion today on how his team designed a distinct closet for each of the three main characters. Unlike ...
The Sartorial Feast of Feudal Japan with “Shōgun” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario: Part One
“I wanted to create from a white canvas without any mental references going into the project,” costume designer Carlos Rosario (The Girl in the Spider’s Web, Jolt) explains why he chose not to read the James Clavell bestselling novel before working on FX Networks’ cinematic historical saga, Shōgun (将軍), and only used the 1980 miniseries ...
“True Detective: Night Country” Costume Designer Alex Bovaird Fashions a Frozen World
Costume designer Alex Bovaird creates a tactile, frozen world in True Detective: Night Country. In the fourth season of the HBO series, filmmaker Issa Lopez takes Bovaird and audiences to the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska. As the True Detective formula goes, two badge-wearers, Chief Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), try to ...
“Dune: Part Two” Costume Designer Jacqueline West on Creating a Goth Rock God in Feyd-Rautha
In Part One of our conversation with veteran costume designer Jacqueline West, we talked about the monumental effort that went into weaving the sartorial visuals of the Fremen’s Sietch Tabr community and the southern Reverend Mothers on the desert planet Arrakis. Today, we conclude with the wardrobe fashioned for some of the most intense action ...
Unveiling the Bene Gesserit’s Secrets With “Dune: Part Two” Costume Designer Jacqueline West
After just nine days in release, Denis Villeneuve’s much-anticipated sequel to his first Dune film has already scored $367 million in worldwide box office. The massive response to Dune: Part Two is due in no small part to costume designer Jacqueline West’s intricate designs that went beyond adding depth to the characters—they are integral in ...
“Henry Sugar” Costume Designer Kasia Walicka Maimone on Weaving an Oscar-Worthy Story for Wes Anderson
When she was five years old, Kasia Walicka Maimone started making her own clothes. “Growing up in Poland, a lot of people had that skill,” she says. “My grandmother made clothes. My mother, a doctor, made clothes. And I did clothes for my musician friends without giving it a thought. I was like, ‘What’s the ...
“Lisa Frankenstein” Costume Designer Meagan McLaughlin Luster on Dressing a Muse and a Monster
In Juno and Jennifer’s Body, screenwriter Diablo Cody depicted the worldview of alienated teenage girls with pitch-perfect wit. Her latest film, Lisa Frankenstein (in theaters now), directed by Zelda Williams, grafts Mary Shelley’s 19th-century monster myth onto the modern horrors of high school. Set in 1989, the movie casts Kathryn Newton as depressed Goth girl ...
“Mean Girls” Costume Designer Tom Broecker on Dressing the Plastics as Gen Z
The movie based on the musical based on the 2004 movie Mean Girls is here, with Angourie Rice taking Lindsey Lohan’s place as Cady, the homeschooled teenager plunged into the catty horror of American public high school social politics. Written by Tina Fey and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., in this musical ...
“Lift” Costume Designer Antoinette Messam on Finding Fresh Looks for Kevin Hart’s Heist Film
In director F. Gary Gray’s new heist movie, Lift, now streaming on Netflix, Kevin Hart plays Cyrus, a blue chip art thief backed by an international crew with a penchant for “freeing” work, from Van Gogh paintings to trendy NFTs. After a showy sleight of hand in Venice, Interpol agent Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) almost has ...
“Maestro” Costume Designer Mark Bridges on Charting the Bernstein’s Ever-Changing Style
It’s no accident that Maestro (on Netflix and in theaters) begins with Bradley Cooper’s elderly Leonard Bernstein reflecting on how much he misses his late wife Felicia, portrayed by Carey Mulligan. The biopic, of course, includes bits of Bernstein’s greatest hits as a composer and conductor, from West Side Story to Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. But ...
Best of 2023: “Succession” Costume Designer Michelle Matland Breaks Down the Roy Family’s Signature Looks
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. Early this season on Succession, Waystar Royco executive Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) mocks the $2900 Burberry handbag carried by cousin Greg’s (Nicholas Braun) date as being “Ludicrously capacious…You could slide it across the floor after a bank job.” ...
Best of 2023: “Poor Things” Costume Designer Holly Waddington on Bringing Yorgos Langthimos’ Ecstatic Vision to Life
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. Before costume designer Holly Waddington got started on Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos gave her a visual reference: inflatable pants. The futuristic-seeming trousers made by London College of Fashion graduate Harikrishnan buck the movie’s late-19th-century setting, which encouraged ...
Best of 2023: “The Color Purple” Costume Designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s Stunning Creations
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. This interview works doubly well as “The Color Purple” is in theaters today. Merry Christmas! There’s a famous line in Alice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple that goes: “I think it pisses God off if you ...
“The Color Purple” Costume Designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s Stunning Creations
There’s a famous line in Alice Walker’s 1982 novel The Color Purple that goes: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” It’s a message that even God can become annoyed when people overlook the wonderful things he creates. One such creation ...
“Wonka” Costume Designer Lindy Hemming on Dressing the Joyous World of a Budding Chocolatier
Costume designer Lindy Hemming knows her way around both sides of the color coin, having worked on Christopher Nolan’s texturally moody Batman trilogy and the playful palette of Paul King’s Paddington movies. She reunites with King for Wonka, whimsically outfitting the candy maker’s origins in a Gene Wilder prequel that has Dune actor Timothée Chalamet ...
“Poor Things” Costume Designer Holly Waddington on Bringing Yorgos Langthimos’ Ecstatic Vision to Life
Before costume designer Holly Waddington got started on Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos gave her a visual reference: inflatable pants. The futuristic-seeming trousers made by London College of Fashion graduate Harikrishnan buck the movie’s late-19th-century setting, which encouraged Waddington to ignore the norms of time and space. No material would be too anachronistic, no fit too ...
“Napoleon” Costume Designers Janty Yates & David Crossman on Designing for Coronations and Conquests
A hat is merely a hat unless it’s a Napoleon Bonaparte hat, in which case the detailing and contours need to possess star quality equal to the man who made it famous. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (in theaters now) casts Joaquin Phoenix as the world-conquering French commander, co-starring Vanessa Kirby as his un-adoring wife Josephine, and ...
“Barbie” Costume Designer Jacqueline Durran Unpacks That Eye-Popping Wardrobe
British costume designer Jacqueline Durran, unlike Greta Gerwig, barely felt any attachment to Barbie dolls during her childhood. On the other hand, she’d enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Gerwig on Little Women, for which Durran won an Oscar. So when the writer-director invited Durran to design clothes for Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as life-sized ...
How Cate Adams’ Costume Design Helped David Fincher’s “The Killer” Disappear
The coldest assassin is the kind you don’t see coming. In a lineup of globe-trotting sharpshooters from the movies, The Killer (Michael Fassbender) may be the most difficult to identify. On a crowded city street, he could be anyone—and that is by design. Costume designer Cate Adams developed the style for director David Fincher’s vision of ...
