The goth appeal of movie costumes

For more than three decades, director Tim Burton has collaborated with costume designer Colleen Atwood to develop the mysterious feel behind some of his greatest songs: Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland And the current Netflix series Wednesday.

Now four-time Academy Award winner Atwood has taken the reins Beetlejuice Beetlejuicefollowing Aggie Guerard Rodgers’ designs for the original Beetlejuice 36 years ago.

New movie? The project involved handcrafting approximately 1,000 costumes, according to Atwood’s estimates.

Among them is Michael Keaton’s signature black-and-white-striped suit, made from luxurious silk imported from heritage Italian textile company Taroni. “I actually had this fabric in my house forever because at one point I was going to cover the sofa with it, but I have animals, so I realized that the four-layer silk sofa might not exist in my lifetime,” Atwood says. Hollywood Reporter. “It became the Beetlejuice suit, and Taroni made more with a specific strip width that I was looking for because there wasn’t just one suit in a movie anymore with the doubles, the doubles and all that.”

The process between Burton and Atwood revolves around the physical world, quite literally.

“I always understand his reaction to fabrics because he’s one of the few directors I know who actually enjoys looking at materials and handling them tactilely,” says Atwood, who used the finest French lace with pleated silk tulle in the red Victorian wedding. Dress worn by Winona Ryder, which goes by the name Lydia Deetz. This has been a baseline for our business relationships for a long time. I didn’t use any fabrics that resembled the originals; I found fabrics that I could easily add color and texture to. [Many] I became more flaky and more flaky.

Designing the costumes for the characters in the afterlife, where each of them wore clothes that explained the cause of their death, was a project in itself. “We worked a lot with [creature effects creative supervisor] “It was Neil Scanlan’s job, and it was almost a full-time job to accommodate all the special effects bodies that changed how clothes were shaped and cut to fit slightly skewed body types,” Atwood says. “We were constantly fitting these things and troubleshooting them.”

Then there was a complex aging process. “We layered screen-prints, applied paint and other materials, and ripped them away, so the pieces looked really tattered,” Atwood says. “I had a large department doing it. Sometimes I would dye the fabric before wearing it, sometimes after making it up, or both. I had multiple versions of the Monica Bellucci dress.” [as Beetlejuice’s ex-wife Delores LaFerve] Fresh from the dry cleaners scene they develop more battered and aged over time.

Bellucci’s black dress, which was transformed from a lingerie version into a touch of her original wedding dress, was another achievement: “Finding out how this dress worked, coming out of the coffins, was a real challenge. They put seven or eight body parts together, which was very clever,” We had pieces of clothing to wrap over the parts you didn’t want to know about; it was that kind of game.

Input from the actors also influenced the costumes. “At one point, the matador might not have been there, but Michael said, ‘Oh, it’s my favorite costume; It’s my favorite costume.’ I have to wear that!’ says Atwood, referring to the original custom-made bullfighting robe worn in Spain by Beetlejuice. Catherine O’Hara (Delia, Dietz’s artistic stepmother), is the only character to re-wear a piece from the original film: “She had the black hat on and she brought it over and said, ‘Can I wear this to the funeral?’ I said, ‘Yes, perfect, let’s do it,’” Atwood says.

“I enjoyed Katherine’s stuff, because I felt like she was one of those people who had her greatest artistic and romantic moments in the ’80s, which was the era of the first movie, and stayed in it for the rest of her life,” Atwood adds. “The ’80s have come back in a lot of weird ways in the fashion world,” Atwood adds. So I kept finding pieces that blew my mind, like her black and white leather coat that I found on a random website.”

The jackets, designed by British fashion designer Elena Dawson, were an idea that Ryder and Justin Theroux (who plays Rory, Lydia’s producer boyfriend) created for their characters. “They were something from Justin. “He said, ‘There’s this designer…'” Atwood says. “Justin knows something about clothes; He’s very personable.” The costume designer approached Rory from a real-world perspective: “I felt like Justin’s character was part of people I already knew in life — managers who are also really big kissers and have symbiotic relationships with their talents. He and I laughed about the hairstyle—we were channeling a young Karl Lagerfeld—and the coat. He dresses like a boyish version of Winona, with a French scarf and “continental flair,” as they say in the past. Ryder also referenced Dawson’s designs, says Atwood: “I knew of her clothes from Dover Street Market in London; They have a great goth vibe. So I sent Elena fabric and she made some specific pieces. “Winona is a mix of schoolgirl gothic and urban Victorian that is always a hit in eclectic stores around the world.”

The livelier look of Lydia’s daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), was described by Atwood as “grunge and ’90s”, because the character gravitated toward that music, and is “socially conscious” as a link to her deceased activist father. That translates to “pieces that felt really organic in their material choices and colors that represented everything that no one else was,” says Atwood, pointing to a denim jacket and a ripped, striped knit dress.

The powers of Atwood’s jacket became clear while being fitted in Rome with Willem Dafoe (underworld detective Wolfe Jackson). “I found this great coat from the 1970s,” Atwood says. “He came in and put it on and started putting his guns down. It was like, ‘Yes, that’s the guy!’”

This story first appeared in the January standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To get the magazine, Click here to subscribe.