Oscars 2017: Costume nominees bring designs to life

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Costume Designers Share Their Sketches

oscar-fashion-image-tout — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Designs by Colleen Atwood, Sketch by Warren Holder; Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Sketch by Consolata Boyle

La La Land, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Florence Foster Jenkins, Allied, and Jackie are the films nominated for Best Costume Design at this year’s Oscars. Here, their designers take you on a journey from sketch to screen.

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-1 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

Zophres had a very collaborative relationship with Damien Chazelle while working with the writer-director on his modern-day musical. “He had a very clear vision of what he wanted in this film, but he also was open to ideas from his department heads,” she says. “When he embraced them, they became part of the language of the film.” Such was the case with Mia’s (Emma Stone) yellow dress, which was inspired by a shade worn by Stone on a red carpet. “We knew that we were going to shoot that duet dance number in what they call 'magic hour,' so we wanted something that would pop against the beginning of the night sky.” The prototype was made out of “this seriously polyester fabric,” but it “moved beautifully” during rehearsals, and so the fabric stuck.

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-2 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

The production kicked off with some intensive planning. “We would stop at six o’clock and I remember the first night I called up my favorite fabric store and I was like, ‘Can you guys stay open for me?’” Zophres recalls. “I ran there because we were talking about colors. I had a Pantone book, but we were just talking about colors sort of abstractly and for me, I needed to get my hands on. ‘Okay, what is [this] exactly?’ We talked about this blue. Damien’s favorite color is, he kept calling it a midnight blue, but it’s really sort of a royal blue, and that was that dress that Mia changes into to go to the first party.” Then came discussion of what her roommates would wear, and bright, fun yellow, red, and green eventually followed suit.

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-3 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

In those early stages, Zophres recalls Chazelle very much had a game plan. “He had a grasp very early on that we all went through. Like it starts off like this, then we reach this pinnacle at the Observatory and that’s where the fantasy is the most heightened,” and that’s where we get a heavy dose of Sebastian’s vintage cool and Mia’s old-school chic (pictured). Her green dress, and all the dresses she dances in for that matter, were made, but the idea was for the them not to look over designed and to appear to be something that could be bought in a store. Zophres continues on the rest of the game plan, “Then, it sort of denouements until we get to the epilogue, which is that reverse and alternate ending and then it’s sort of an explosion of color again and so we stuck to it.”

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-4 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

Mia’s romantic counterpart Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) has a style that is all his own. “I had this theory, and I felt strongly about it, that Sebastian was a more formal guy and he may not have a ton of money, but I did want his shirts sort of to have a vintage quality to them,” Zophres says. “I think it’s believable that he would’ve purchased clothes that were in a vintage store. He even, more than Mia, perhaps was thinking ‘Oh, this looks a lot like something that Bill Evans wore or this looks like something that Hoagy Carmichael wore or this looks like something that Chet Baker would’ve worn.’ That’s the look we were going for, but I didn’t want it to be too Williamsburg.” According to Zophres, Gosling was very on board with the formal approach.

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-5 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

The costumes of La La Land, and arguably the broader film for that matter, are so charming, but never seem to go too far. Zophres says years of practice helped her straddle that line. “There were things [Emma] tried on that were like ‘Too cutesy poopsie, take them off.’ She had a ton of changes because there’s a lot of montage-y bits. Emma works best, I think, in a more simple, streamlined look. You get into the zone, and you’re like ‘Okay, that’s going to work,’ so we just avoided getting too cute and I think that’s keeping it classic and stylized and paired down.” Simply put, “What we like is what ended up in the film.”

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Mary Zophres for La La Land

la-la-land-6 — Sketch by Mary Zophres; Dale Robinette

The favorite for Zophres is Mia’s white dress that she wears in the fantasy sequence near the end of the film. “That made me so happy and obviously that is a reference to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” she details, recalling how Chazelle originally had a spaghetti-strap dress in mind but they ended up going with a different neckline. The fitting really stands out in her mind. “We were in [Emma's] trailer and she started spinning and I was like ‘Oh my God.’ I swear to God, I had little tears in my eyes. It was so beautiful! I just think she looks lovely.”

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Colleen Atwood for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

fantastic-beasts-1 — Designs by Colleen Atwood, Sketch by Warren Holder; Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the hero at the center of director David Yates and writer J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter prequel, sports a specific shade of peacock blue with his coat. “I wanted something with some color and I picked that color because it felt like a color that one of his magical friends might have,” Atwood says, adding that she pulled inspiration from bird colors “to make it feel like he’s one of them, but he’s also one of us.” The oddball character’s costume was also shorter to allow for him to get up and down off the ground easily, presumably for all the caring of magical creatures to be done, and had a number of pockets for medicines and, of course, a wand.

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Colleen Atwood for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

fantastic-beasts-2 — Designs by Colleen Atwood, Sketch by Warren Holder; Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Queenie Goldstein’s style also stands apart from the crowd, but for a very different reason. “My take on her was I wanted her clothes to be transparent, like you thought you could see through them, but you can’t,” Atwood explains of Alison Sudol’s Legilimens. “They’re the kind of clothes that guys are always wondering what’s underneath and she’s sort of a tease in that way, and distracts people with that magic while she’s doing her other magic. Very feminine, very light, and almost transparent, but not quite.” Her ex-auror sister Tina (Katherine Waterston), meanwhile, doesn’t focus much on fashion. “Tina’s a more modern girl. She’s more like a girl with a bit of an edge.”

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Colleen Atwood for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

fantastic-beasts-3 — Designs by Colleen Atwood, Sketch by Warren Holder; Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Head of the Magical Congress of the United States of America’s (MACUSA) Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), has a much darker look to him. “I really wanted him to feel powerful and so I gave him scale, like huge scale with his costumes,” Atwood details. “The shoulders are wider, it’s exaggerated, it’s longer, it kind of has more flow to it.” As for its makings, “It was a beautiful piece of cashmere that I found that was amazing. It had a little bit of fleck in it. It was metallic, which you don’t read in film as metallic. It just catches the light better than if it were just a matte.”

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Colleen Atwood for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

fantastic-beasts-4 — Designs by Colleen Atwood, Sketch by Warren Holder; Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) appears throughout the film in an ill-fitted suit, which he wore when attempting to get a loan to open a bakery. There’s something quite charming about his ensemble because you can see that he’s really trying. However if he had the means, what would his aspirational style be? “You get a scene at the end of the movie for a second in his bakery where he’s successful, so he has a bowtie with a festive print and ... a waistcoat and pair of trousers,” Atwood says. “I think he dressed in a business way, but with color and a little bit of character. Maybe his taste isn’t 100%, but he’s got that kind of flair, so that was my way of going with him. Even though he had old stuff, he wore it well.”

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-1 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

To hit the right costume note, Boyle had a number of conversations with director Stephen Frears and star Meryl Streep, who plays the title role of the New York heiress with a deep love of opera, but a horrendous singing voice. “We had great fun thinking about her, in her performance costume, how I wanted to make everything slightly tremble around Florence’s head,” says Boyle of Streep, and you can definitely see that in the character’s headpieces. “It was always this slight movement around her. There was a childish delight in how she dressed, but also it was the denial of the reality of what actually was going on.”

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-2 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

Boyle continues, “Meryl and I spent many, many hours discussing how costume would express this and tell Florence’s story in a sort of subtle way that runs beneath everything. Meryl is a supreme artist and knows exactly how to use costume and has a deep knowledge of the power of costume. She is just totally imbued with it and totally enjoys it and she would need to really because she was padded from the neck down in the ... making of the movie and she did that with great fun and grace and good humor.”

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-3 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

For inspiration, Boyle looked at original images of the real woman and created an amalgam of her performance costumes, though perhaps those for the screen were a bit heightened or altered. “There was an absolute innocence about how Florence approached how she looked,” says Boyle, who used the archives of the New York Public Library, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall for reference. “It was over decorated, rather naive, because sometimes they were absolutely so flamboyant and, in many ways, tasteless. You know they were really, as if she wasn’t aware of how she might appear.” On top of that, she didn’t seem to show signs of stopping, and all that of course was most evident in what she wore on stage, but it certainly made its way into her every day as well.

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-4 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

In terms of fabric, synthetics were starting to be widely used during the period so Boyle brought those into Florence’s day-to-day wear. She also included original fabrics from that time that she found or reconstructed, as well as silks and tulles that also appeared in Florence's performance outfits. In terms of palette, Boyle and other designers were very specific about their selections. “Her world was this world of pastels and Alan MacDonald, our production designer, used those themes in his sets and in the environment, so it was like just as Hugh Grant says as Bayfield; he says, 'Mr. McMoon (Simon Helberg), there are rules to our world. Ours is a happy world and once you come in, you have to leave your cynicism at the door,' so we wanted to reflect that very much in how the movie looked.”

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-5 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

Speaking of Bayfield, Boyle says he looks smarter throughout the film — see his sharp tux above — as does McMoon, who went through an even bigger transformation. “The approach that the script took was that he was a rather penniless musician, so obviously his day-to-day wear was very simple, very much of the period of the 1940s of an artist, but then Florence paid anybody,” Boyle explains of McMoon’s style. “She was incredibly generous and would have provided McMoon with his performance evening tails and helped him to look smarter.”

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Consolata Boyle for Florence Foster Jenkins

ffj-7 — Sketch by Consolata Boyle; Nick Wall

In the film, Florence is completely in awe of opera singer Lily Pons at one of her performances. On a costume level, Boyle believes Florence to have been drawn to “the beauty of her, the glitter in her frock, just like a little bird as she said ... It’s almost like Florence is attracted to things that glitter ... like a child, but also at that moment, she knows that in a way the die is cast because in her heart and her head Florence has decided ‘I’m going to sing in Carnegie Hall’ in spite of absolutely everything that is screaming at her. ‘Don’t, please don’t.’ In that moment, she makes that decision, so she’s hugely moved by Lily Pons and intrigued and just falls in love with her beauty and her twinkle and her sparkle and her voice.”

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-1 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Daniel Smith

Director Robert Zemeckis’ spy drama is very glamorous, and perhaps most so at a German Embassy event in Casablanca in which Canadian intelligence officer Max (Brad Pitt) and French Resistance fighter Marianne (Marion Cotillard) respectively sport a '40s-style tuxedo and green gown. “The German Embassy is the sort of most formal piece of the film in regards to the costume design,” Johnston says. Speaking to Marianne’s showstopper, she explains, “I wanted it to be simple and elegant, statuesque and also she had to be able to run.” Because, you know, the pair are there on a mission.

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-2 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Daniel Smith

On a more casual note, here, Max wears a camel-colored jacket with a white button-down underneath, brown pants, a blue scarf wrapped around his head, and glasses, among other accessories. He’s ready for the climate, but he’s fashionable too. “It’s just a good-looking, appropriate for the desert kind of look,” Johnston says. It’s all the more interesting as this stylishly worn and weathered number is a stark contrast to the crisp and clean uniform he appears in once in London.

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-4 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Daniel Smith

Max wears another relaxed outfit, this time in the form of a blue jacket with white Polo underneath and yellow pants to go shooting with Marianne. “[It's] a little bit more fashionable jacket, so it’s sort of a safari-style '40s jacket ... and again, appropriate for being in the desert and North Africa, but good looking at the same time, so casual chic I would call that," Johnston says. As for working with Zemeckis, she implies it was a smooth experience. “Not only is he a great director, but I’ve worked with him quite a bit and therefore there’s a real shorthand between him and me and his producer Steve Starkey, so I can cut through the quick easier.”

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-3 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Daniel Smith

In Casablanca, Marianne looks like a '40s movie star in her white dress with a blue-patterned bottom and straw hat. “The influence on that was French fashion,” Johnston says of the look. “I was inspired by a French fashion drawing. I felt she’d taken her French style with her to North Africa, so that was ... sort of chic, casual, made out of a silk, but kind of relaxed, good looking. The hat was a nod toward Bette Davis in Now, Voyager.” On how Marianne compares to Max, Johnston says, “she’s a little bit of a chameleon,” while “he is more constant.”

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-6 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Paramount Pictures

Johnston doesn’t have a favorite look, but she does love the print on Marianne’s nightwear. “I found the print and I loved the print so much so I wanted to use it on the rooftop in Casablanca,” she explains. Underneath, is “just a classic, sexy nightdress in construction.” As for how Marianne transforms upon moving to London, her style is part French and part English. “She’s wanting to take on the identity of the wife to an Englishman with little nuances, which are still toward French styling. By the time she comes into London she goes into more warm colors, whereas in Casablanca she’s in cooler colors.”

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Joanna Johnston for Allied

allied-5 — Design by Joanna Johnston, Illustration by Jacqueline Bissett; Daniel Smith

Through the process, Johnston developed a bit of a crush on the period and the films made during the era. “I wish I could go back in time and work on a film then,” she says. “I’d love to see how it would have been compared to now. I looked at all the good and the great then and I was a bit in awe actually of filmmaking then.” She says those crushes, which extended to particular pieces, can be fleeting. “I’ll be like, ‘It’s an old lover, it’s gone.’” Such was the case with Lincoln, in which she saw the historical figure in a totally different light. “You become taken with these people that you’re trying either to represent or do something in homage or respect for and it’s fascinating actually how you go through these [stages].”

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Madeline Fontaine for Jackie

oscar-nominee-natalie-portman-jackie — Pablo Larraín. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

For the red dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore during the televised tour of the White House in 1962, Fontaine had to track down the right hues to match the archival photos and footage used as reference for director Pablo Larraίn’s biopic, which follows the former first lady (played here by Natalie Portman) in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. “For the red dress on the TV movie, it’s in black and white, but there are some pictures with the original red,” Fontaine previously wrote to EW. “In fact, we had to make two different pieces: one red and one pink to obtain the right shade of grey for the black and white continuity.”

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Madeline Fontaine for Jackie

The most iconic ensemble is Kennedy’s pink suit, which appears splattered with blood following JFK's assassination. “For the pink dress, we made it as a copy of the one everybody knows,” Fontaine explained. “We had first to settle with Pablo and Stéphane Fontaine, the [director of photography], on the right color according to the choices of the different cameras (for the shooting and the continuity of the footage). Then I made film tests of different colors to get the pink. And then made five of them … [It was] impressive to see Natalie in it for the first time on set. We had to be convinced!”

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Madeline Fontaine for Jackie

Peter Sarsgaard as "Bobby Kennedy" and Natalie Portman as "Jacki — William Gray

Of Kennedy’s mourning outfits, Fontaine said it “had to be the ‘one.’” As for any creative liberties the design process might have taken, despite the film being a biopic, Fontaine wrote that her team “tried to remain as faithful to [Kennedy's] style and legacy as possible. Some pieces are vintage pieces coming from antique dealers that we adapted.”