For costume designers, it’s not just about the outfit they put on an actor; it’s about the little details, such as accessorizing, that help ground their performance.
“1923” costume designer Janie Bryant explains, “I love jewelry. I collect a lot of it, and I love to use it for the accents and really identify the characters.”
Similarly, “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” costume designer Tsigie White Robinson admits she, too, is a jewelry fanatic and tends “to buy jewelry first before I buy anything else.”
Robinson and Bryant were joined by fellow costume designers Renée Ehrlich Kalfus (“Another Simple Favor”) and Natalie Humphries (“The Day of the Jackal”) for Variety’s Artisans Exchange panel, moderated by senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay. The artisans provided a lens into the artistic subtleties of storytelling through their craft. The Creative Collaborators panel saw production designer Kave Quinn (“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”), cinematographer Ksenia Sereda (“The Last of Us”) and “Yellowjackets” production designer Margot Ready illuminate the collaborative process and discuss elements from world-building to camera movement.
Artisans Exchange: Costume Design
In approaching Peacock’s “The Day of the Jackal,” Humphries wanted to pay homage to the 1973 film by Fred Zinnemann. In conversations with the show’s star Eddie Redmayne, they noted how Edward Fox’s Jackal character was a “highly groomed, tailored assassin,” and that was something Humphries wanted to bring into the contemporary character. “We leaned into British tailoring,” Humphries says. However, as he travels through Europe, she blended in European labels to reflect how the character was buying clothes along the way.
The key to the Jackal was since he needed to move around undetected, she kept away from bright pops of color. His palette was “tans, brown, navy and gray. Straight out of the espionage playbook.”
Kalfus had never worked on a sequel until “Another Simple Favor,” starring Blake Lively once again as Emily and Anna Kendrick as Stephanie. This time, Stephanie agrees to be the maid of honor at Emily’s wedding.
Kalfus seized the opportunity to make Emily even more intimidating by using bigger silhouettes. “Her arriving in a suit that was a prison stripe was an ode to where she had been for the last seven years. She was in a horizontal stripe suit, draped in chains. So that was one of the ways of taking the gender bending, and psychologically placing her where she creates tension with Stephanie.”
As for that wedding dress, Kalfus explains how it was made with a custom white latex bustier. Being in Rome, she worked with local artisans to make the silver satin skirt. “The 40-foot veil took up the entire block,” says Kalfus. “It was dyed and dripped in blood red, and then encrusted with red crystals as to indicate possible things that were going to happen.”
Over the years on “Power Book III: Raising Kanan,” Robinson has created looks seeped in ’90s hip-hop nostalgia, but with a modern twist. “I source from all over the world,” she says.” Other times, she’s sourcing fabrics and working with her tailoring team to recreate the authentic urban-wear seen on the show.
The costume designers also talked about the importance of accessorizing. Bryant’s obsession with watch fobs is something she plays with on Taylor Sheridan’s show and says they’re important for the men. In contrast, Cara Dutton, the family matriarch played by Helen Mirren, is “old-fashioned,” so Bryant styles her in jewelry from a different era. “She has a pair of earrings that are old-fashioned, and the brooches she wears are of an early time.” Bryant explains, “It really sets her in period. And she really contrasts from the other women in the show.”
Robinson noted how important jewelry was from a cultural and urban standpoint. Whether it was incorporating name plates, three finger rings or nugget rings, “there was a way to tell that story without making it feel like a caricature. I leaned into how my grandfather and his friends dressed and how they wore their jewelry.”
As for “The Day of the Jackal,” one special outfit he wears is a suede jacket. “We tried every type of suede jacket in the U.K. and the United States, and we looked at European ones.” In the end, Humphries found the perfect look on London’s Saville Row. “It’s from Drake’s.”
The costume designers also discussed the topic of pay equity. Last year, after decades of fighting, the guild achieved pay equity and received a wage increase of over 40%, bringing the scale rate in line with similar creative peers.
Humphries stresses the importance of the costume designer’s role as department head. “We’re often one of the first people to meet an actor. You can be given so little time that you meet an actor, they fly in the day before they shoot, so that becomes a really highly pressured situation.”
Adds Kalfus, “It is an enormous undertaking. You start with the director, you have producers, everybody wants something. Then you are the first line of fire with an actor. You’re going, ‘Well, here’s the character. I’m gonna tell you what it is. Look at this.’ You’re instrumental in getting them on camera.”
Artisans Exchange: Creative Collaborators
During the Artisans Exchange: Creative Collaborators panel, Quinn, Sereda and Ready discussed the importance of the collaborative process and how it tied to the showrunners. Ready explains, “The showrunners steer the ship for the season.”
Sereda, who returned to “The Last of Us,” worked with showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann to tell the visual story of the show’s new season. “There were a lot of new colors, storylines and characters, but it starts with a creative collaboration with the showrunners, and in our case, both are directing too, so it brings you close to the source,” says Sereda, referring to the video game.
Sereda wanted to preserve the handheld look of the show, going from Season 1 to Season 2. The difference was that the camera was more grounded. “Even though it is about this post-apocalyptic world and infected, it’s still pretty much very attached to the characters, and we’re so close to them.”
Quinn wanted to show how Renee Zellweger’s Bridget Jones had evolved. In finding Bridget’s house, Quinn needed to tell a story and show elements of Mark. “She’s been living in this house for some time on her own with her children,” says Quinn. The yellow kitchen was designed to mirror Bridget. “It was fun. It was vibrant,” Quinn explains.
She pulled from personal experience when it came to filling the set. “I have three grown-up children, and there were little nods to them. Some of the things my children made for me were in the set, such as Mother’s Day cards and things like that. I have boxes of art that my children have done. So I used a lot of that.”
On the subject of kitchens, one of Ready’s new sets was Melissa’s (Hilary Swank) kitchen in the third season of “Yellowjackets.”
Ready’s approach was the counterpoint, with her design reflecting the character’s state of mind. In the show, Melissa is one of the survivors of the plane crash and the wilderness. As an adult, she has created a false persona and faked her own death. Ready explains, “Her house, intentionally, is a combination of blank and artificially over-decorated.”
Ready stayed in neutral tones and says, “We carefully curated everything to be incredibly, impossibly tidy.” That meant drawings being precisely taped to the walls, and jars lined up in the pantry. “We feel this is Melissa’s response to her trauma.”
The sign reading “Kitchen Is the Heart of the Family” was an item Ready found online. But it had major significance. “There is no heart to this family because she is living a lie. But also, of course, a nod to their consumption of each other and their consumptions of their hearts.”
variety.com
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