Those who remember the flash and trash of ’80s style may have a hard time thinking of a film set 15 years ago as a “period piece.”
But Isis Mussenden, the costume designer for “American Psycho,” says it only takes a decade-plus for styles to turn retro.
“You’ve just got to be able to step back and see a change,” says Mussenden, whose hard work can be seen on the big screen when “Psycho” opens Friday.
While it wasn’t hard to contrast the ’80s over-the-top styles with today’s more subdued take on fashion, don’t expect to see the cartoony elements of Reagan-era style on display in “Psycho.”
Outside of the movie’s crowd scenes, you’ll see few of the decade’s acid-wash jeans, zippered leather jackets and Spandex.
“We weren’t taking on high fashion or advertising,” Mussenden reminds. “We were taking on Wall Street.”
In the movie, when “Psycho” namesake Patrick Bateman isn’t dreaming about torture and murder, he’s considering the quality of the imprint on his calling cards, the size and decor of his Upper East Side apartment, and — of course — the state of the clothes hanging neatly in his closet.
Thanks to a booming economy, the late-’80s Bateman and his self-absorbed Wall Street cronies are dressed in head-to-toe couture.
“That side of ’80s fashion was fun and fabulous,” says Mussenden. She says it’s the ready-to-wear that gives that decade a bad style rap: “When you’re researching couture — and really high-end stuff — it always beautiful, even if it’s from 1987.”
Mussenden turned to haute menswear companies for help dressing the movie’s hyper-yuppies and yuppettes.
The Italian house of Cerrutti was especially sympathetic to her cause. “They sent me the catalogs of their collections from those days, and I chose some designs which they then remade from the original patterns,” Mussenden explains.
As for dressing the rest of the cast, “we didn’t have a large budget, so we had to beg, borrow and steal,” Mussenden admits.
She was able to get cheeky dress diva Betsey Johnson to donate two racks of clothing from her personal archives.
Patricia Field, whose stores specialize in club wear, also handed over some ’80s gear. The rest was purchased second-hand — “and not always vintage stores,” Mussenden adds.
“We bought a lot of it at resale stores, where this stuff is still hanging on the racks for sale,” she says.
For instance, a slate-colored strapless suede mini-dress by Calvin Klein, worn by Chloe Sevigny’s character, came from a local second-hand store. Many of the additional men’s suits — by the likes of Valentino, Hugo Boss and Armani — were found in similar stores in L.A.
Mussenden derived a sense of sweet satisfaction recreating the Me Decade on screen. In the ’80s, she was a poor New York costume designer living a meager lifestyle far removed from the masters of the universe portrayed in “Psycho.”
“So with this movie, I got to poke fun [at them],” she says. “I got to get my revenge.”