One test of a successful “Zoolander 2” costume is whether it’s too tight to sit down in and too big to fit through a door.
By that measure alone, the extravagant getups costume designer Leesa Evans created for Kristen Wiig’s character Alexanya Atoz, a fashion fiend and evil accomplice to Will Ferrell’s Mugatu, are outsize triumphs.
Wiig’s ensembles were so wide and unwieldy that she couldn’t even use her trailer. “We needed a special tent for Kristen to get dressed in right on set,” says Evans with a laugh. “Every outfit felt like it needed to be impossible to wear on any given day.”
When it came to creating Alexanya’s over-the-top style, Evans usually started with a designer piece, then festooned it with custom-made add-ons. “We had a whole workshop set up in Rome at Cinecittà [Studios] — we had incredible craftsman, cutters and sewers building the majority of the costumes.”
As for suiting up Derek Zoolander, the male model played by Ben Stiller, he’s already really, really ridiculously good looking. Evans just had to gild the lily.
Here, the designer tells The Post how she embellished two of the film’s memorable looks.
“This gown struck me as being the shape of the earth,” says Evans of Zac Posen’s midnight duchesse and taffeta gown from his resort 2015 collection. “That created the idea of there being this cage-like world over the top of it and incorporating a cage bustle over the top of the skirt so you really felt the structure of it. It became even more grand and impressive.”
“We created a glitter and sequin tuxedo shirt, scarf and pants to go with the Saint Laurent jacket,” says Evans. “The fabrication is what takes it to its Zoolander place — we used glitter and sequins to take it over the top.”