- 2 weeks ago
Designers from 'Transparent,' 'Feud,' 'Westworld,' and 'Big Little Lies' joined the THR panel.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00all right thanks everybody and thanks to all the M&E nominated costume designers
00:11for being here you guys are like my dream team I think it's really an
00:14extraordinary time for television and for shows that are representing
00:19diversity in America whether it's a transparent or an older age Hollywood
00:25diva TV is really driving the cultural conversation in a vital way whether it's
00:31Handmaid's Tale the dystopian gender divided world in that show or the
00:37intelligent machines of Westworld the stories on screen are really striking a
00:42chord with viewers in these tumultuous times and it's also a great time for
00:48costume design and television I think because it's particularly impactful
00:52because viewers get to see these characters over and over again week
00:56after week or hour after hour if you're binging on a show and really connect
01:00with them and I think in a way that makes you sort of identify all the more with
01:06a character and want to dress like them or be like them so it's an exciting time
01:11for costume design as well so before I get started I want to introduce all of you
01:16first of all we have Anne who's nominated for Handmaid's Tale which is a show that
01:24really couldn't have come along at a better time and she created the
01:31signature red Handmaid's Tale outfits that this is kind of the red this is my
01:38assistant's idea but I like it that have really become a political uniform of
01:43protest for so many women around the country and you also work on Westworld
01:48and did masters of sex and I'm just mentioned Pan Am
01:54Marie Schley you're nominated for Amazon's Transparent which is really which is
02:04really the classic American TV family TV show for today and I think you created a
02:10look for that show that's so recognizable for those of us who live in Southern
02:13California whether it's the Eastside vintage digs or the marina retiree look
02:19I think we all recognize it Trish Somerville you're nominated for creating the
02:26look for for the pilot for HBO's Westworld and you've done a lot of work on film and TV and
02:34styling and you've also crossed over into fashion and Hunger Games catching fire
02:40girl with a dragon tattoo you did a collaboration with H&M that was based on
02:46your work in that film which probably sold at this mall actually an agent and then I
02:53want to introduce Zaldi who I first met when you were designing Gwen Stefani's line
03:01lamb a fashion collection and you're nominated with Perry for your work on
03:07RuPaul's Drag Race on VH1 and Zaldi has really worked with a who's who of pop music
03:15he's designed costumes and wardrobe for Lady Gaga Madonna Madonna and Michael Jackson
03:21and you've had your own fashion label so and Perry next to you Perry Meek I was
03:28fascinated to learn as a former ice skating champion in Australia which is
03:35amazing I want to hear about that transition and and you've worked and
03:41you've worked with Lady Gaga too and thank you for being here and Alex you're
03:46nominated for HBO's Big Little Lies and for that show you created a range of
03:54costumes from upscale athleisure to Audrey Hepburn glam for some fabulous ladies
04:01like Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon and Zoe Kravitz you've also worked on
04:06Modern Family and Hung and last but not least we have Lou
04:13Lou Eric who's nominated for Feud on FX which is an amazing series about Betty Davis and Joan Crawford and
04:24Lou is a costume design legend and you've known known for your work you are known for your work on Glee
04:33and American Horror Story and and so many others honestly I feel like we could do an hour with each of you but
04:39we're gonna try to move along and have everyone have a chance to speak and so I
04:44want to ask you guys first to talk a little bit about the projects that you're
04:48nominated for and specifically what the visual references were for the show so
04:54why don't we start with you okay so those were all over the place how much time do you
05:01have I you know sincerely it was all over the place I tend to oddly or maybe not oddly maybe you guys do
05:10the same thing but I go toward nature first in terms of finding color and and I think the biggest thing
05:18I tried to do was find current religious groups that are all over the world and some more specific
05:28to oddly New Zealand it wasn't that I was looking toward New Zealand but I was looking for religious
05:35groups that looked and felt like the story at hand and then I went into the military and any sort of group
05:44that was very uniform you know it's kind of very logical thinking but our show is really about
05:53everything being in mass many all together and different tribal looks so it was the gamut from
06:01you know religious groups to different periods in time that are quite classic to you know even ants
06:10a n t s I mean I go toward insects even so it was everywhere and my mother even
06:17what about you Marie um well I'm on season three of transparent so um and it's a story about personal
06:31authenticity so each season the creator of the show kind of throws us a curveball and says we need to
06:38reinvent these characters as they progress on their journey to self-discovery so in this season you know
06:45Maura decides to she's depressed and she um even though she has everything she's in a relationship
06:54and she decides to you know pursue um surgery for her transition and become more feminine but you know
07:02we've been on I've been on this journey about what it means to be feminine and what it means to be
07:07masculine and so in season three instead of just doing the you know for season one I did the research like
07:12what does a trans transgender woman in her 70s look like for season three I really had to
07:16start thinking about what gender is and if gender is a spectrum and it's a construct then really
07:23clothing are it's one of the building blocks of gender and so what makes something feminine and what
07:30makes something masculine and we kind of started there in a much more intellectual place than we had before
07:36and trying to you know create a new silhouette for Maura meant you know giving her a waistline which we hadn't
07:42throwing away the bohemian looks and really tailoring her getting rid of the prints um and doing like a
07:50monochromatic more urbane look for her and you know the other characters also are all transitioning through
07:56things too so um but it became just a more intellectualized process about what is gender it sounds like a psychology class
08:05psychology class yeah you can get you can really go down the wormhole of that yeah what about you lou
08:10i learned a big lesson this time around for feud in that um i came right off of american horror story
08:19roanoke roanoke which was a reality based on reality tv actors playing actors and then the flashbacks to
08:2715th century which i'd never done before so i was learning a lot it was a bloody mess and then go
08:31right into feud and i've got a little cocky thinking it's 60s let's do my research but it was
08:38it was it really threw me off and it took me a while to get into it and then jessica and susan
08:46all our actors either came from new york london australia and as everybody here knows they only
08:53want to fly the day before they work and susan and jessica had 62 changes each the first two weeks of
08:59shooting because we crossed board in several episodes so i wasn't prepared so i didn't really
09:06catch my speed until like episode two but i did rely of course on the research which is there and uh but
09:14then ryan murphy throws that curveball and doesn't want to follow the research and uh so it was really
09:19about color and texture and tone and then you have two women who are close to 70 who certainly don't look
09:26like it but are playing their early 50s and flashbacks to 30s 40s 50s 60s into the 70s so
09:33it was just uh learning a lot and really having a good team who helped me with my research because i
09:39couldn't do it fast enough and uh shout out to all the costumers who make us look good by the way
09:45tailors seamstresses everybody they're my inspiration my costumers are my inspiration
09:54my assistant is my inspiration and they feed me things that then i get the credit for and i just
09:59want to make sure that they know that i know how i'm up here because of my team but that's my
10:06inspiration for this show mostly it was the just the research the great youtube um resources and um
10:15the at usc they have a library that they bought from warner brothers and they had the entire
10:21behind the scenes photos of uh whatever happened to baby jane so we were able to go in and look at
10:28the slides and the the the dress that uh we weren't allowed to take anything out so we hired an artist
10:36to go in and look at the slides of the watercolor dress that betty wears and she matched the pantone
10:41and painted a swatch so then i could have that fabric made and make the dress so that was a long answer
10:48sorry it's amazing i remember you telling me too that i thought was interesting that you didn't want
10:56to look at any of the film performances of joan or betty because you didn't want to be influenced
11:01by their costumes you really wanted to be influenced by them personally which you know is the costume
11:06for this film right for for this series yeah yeah you get a lot of uh with with jessica and susan
11:13it they have a lot of input yeah okay trish what about you inspiration well i guess inspiration for
11:23me starting on westworld was one of kind of the things that was really cool was when i went in
11:28to interview for the job which i just found cleaning out my office this weekend was they gave you these
11:36kind of um two pieces of paper and one of them because it was really very secretive as to what the
11:42show was so there were these two pieces of paper that they gave me and one was kind of a handwritten
11:47note which later when i got on the series the the pilot i realized it was from dolores but it was
11:53this handwritten note that she wrote to warn teddy about they're after us like you know and then the
12:01other thing was from all the people in delos who were talking about the robot so they give they gave me
12:09those two things and said okay now read these and then come in and give us tears and i'm like
12:14okay so then you know i did all this research and i come in and you know luckily like i really kind
12:22of hit it off with lisa and jonah and then we start doing research so the research it's like you know we
12:28all kind of experience things of if you're working on a show that is something that exists if you have
12:33research you can go on you have something you can show people the directors the producers the studios
12:40and say this is what this looked like in 1906 this is what this looked like in 1950 but then there's
12:46that level that we had the future that was slightly future not too much in the future there's no timeline
12:53on it so you have nothing to go on for that and so that's what makes it a little bit more challenging
12:59because everybody has a different perception of what they think that should be and luckily i got to work
13:04very closely with the production designer nathan crawley who's quite talented and very giving of
13:09information so he and i started coming up about when we thought it should be and so it was doing
13:16all this research of the wild west gunslingers negro cowboys female cowboys like everything because we
13:22want it to be all encompassing we figured if this is a world of disneyland meets fantasy island you have
13:29to provide everything for anyone who wants to come then we had to design everyone who lives below the
13:35which i call the butchers the people that chop the bodies remake the bodies and and i wanted them to
13:40be like you know they just get hosed down and they're in latex and pvc and you remake them then
13:46then we had savages that come in and steal try to steal maves children so it's like it was all these levels
13:53of things that existed and didn't exist so it was rooms and rooms and rooms of research and at one point
14:00hbo came in and you we call it i mean i call it a dog and pony show where the studios come in and
14:06you're like like here's what we have this is what we think you know before you get the go ahead
14:11and i had all this one section kind of covered with paper and they one of the guys said like
14:18oh is this what you're trying to sneak past us is it what you guys are trying to hide and i said no
14:22i'm just trying to be respectful you can take the the paper down if you'd like because it was all
14:27autopsies and butcher scenes because it was for the lower levels of what happens and then it got
14:33to be this thing of like then they never questioned me again it was like just do it's fine you scared
14:38the hell out of them yeah you just it's okay do whatever you want you know so but it was i mean
14:43it's it's definitely a lot a lot of research and it's a lot of like trying to find authentic fabrics
14:49you know from all the period stuff and then just figuring out where we want to shift what's the
14:55unknown you know and i think for me when i don't have something to go on i think that's the trickiest
15:01thing to do like it's like in catching fire it's like the future thing that nobody quite knows what
15:05that is is a little bit more tricky i think okay alex tell us about big little lies and and all those
15:12women um i think that uh i was really it was an absolute gift to work with jean-marc valet because
15:22he starts uh with music for every character and he made a playlist for every woman in the show
15:31and so i would listen to these playlists and you get a sense of who they are what they're feeling
15:37where they're going how they're spinning and that was a beautiful place to to start visually is just
15:45with music um and then his the women each have this level of proximity to the ocean and socio-economically
15:54their hierarchy is is directly related to where they are situated in relationship to the ocean
16:01and so it is tricky on contemporary shows to do a job where no one really notices the clothes i think
16:10that's actually the most important thing is to do something where it's not distracting and it feels so
16:15organic to the character that you're not distracted by the clothes but these women obviously were in a
16:21one percent category so the clothes did play a bigger role certainly for the renata character the very
16:28wealthy the queen in her castle and the highest on the hill to the ocean um so in terms of of
16:36inspiration music and uh their environments were paramount the the houses where they lived what they
16:45were going through how heavily that they needed to mask how messed up they were inside and i think that
16:52was viewers obsessed over those clothes though i mean was there one piece that you got like more
16:58inquiries about than anything else i mean i don't know like a there was a jacket or there's a jumpsuit
17:06uh that was i couldn't believe the amount of attention it was sort of a comedic moment i thought of a mom
17:13who was trying so hard to make it up to her kid that all these girls weren't going to come to her party so
17:19she dressed up in this ridiculous although some might not think it's ridiculous panther jumpsuit
17:24actually uh and big huge cork earrings and just went on a full 70s i want to be the cool mom look
17:33and uh people dug it i just pretend like i did it on purpose it was sort of a i thought so perry and
17:43zaldi tell me a little bit about uh your inspiration how you two work together and um think about we
17:49actually haven't worked together per se um we've just worked obviously on the show okay um and you
17:57know and i've obviously known zaldi and his work for years many years and you know the other wonderful
18:01work he's done with rupaul um but with my uh episode with the lady gaga i got the call on sunday
18:08night okay actually it was about a year ago and it was uh i got the call on sunday night and they were
18:14we filmed on wednesday morning no yeah and gaga called and she said well you know i want you to
18:20do this outfit and i said well what is it and they said for those that haven't seen that particular
18:25episode they wanted her to be the 14th queen like they wanted to sneak her in as a drag queen and
18:30pretend like she was the 14th contestant because the other drag queens in the workroom don't see who
18:36their competition is and so i said okay so you know so i said well what about something kind of very
18:41royal and regal and you know like really over the top and she's like oh of course i love it and
18:47having worked with her for the past six and a half years i designed her last um the art pop tour i know
18:53that you never do one option with her because it's always oh well what else is there so i did three
19:00options in two days and actually the option that we ended up going with wasn't the was my third choice
19:08and again true to her form she said well let's take the cat suit from this and the jacket from
19:13this and the thing and you know um kind of put it all together so uh yeah it's always a time
19:20constraint but you know the inspiration was the show and and you know seeing all of his oldies over
19:25the top stuff that he does for rue you know i said when you know i told her i said we can't go out
19:30there looking like you're going shopping at hsn yeah she definitely made an entrance as she always
19:38does and tell me is all the about your inspiration um i mean it's the only inspiration on the show is
19:46really rupaul yeah i mean you know because you're creating a body already and it's like the body changes
19:52a little bit you know like in these kardashian years the hips have gotten a little bit bigger
19:57um but it's always rue um and it's it's very unlike any of the other projects that i do which
20:04are you know i go crazy for research and everything you know like same thing i listen to music i watch
20:11tv read books um but this one it's just very like a very like freeing kind of feeling like we never
20:20have fittings um we just ship and send we just like ship it we make them and ship them so it's a
20:26surprise it's a surprise it's like christmas for rue every time we just send these gigantic boxes
20:32yeah and then they open them the day of filming and then she's like oh my god and that's it so it's
20:38um it's like it's i i found that it's my my studio's favorite project to do because we just get to do
20:46whatever we want and rue is always like i love it it's always love at first sight it's always love
20:50it's like christmas wow yeah that's that's pretty nice and lou you talked a little bit about
20:54collaboration and sort of what role your team plays um the rest of you will you tell me a little
21:01bit about uh what your what your team is like and um how you work together so on the handmaid's tale
21:09i'm doing the show in toronto and uh toronto is i think on par with atlanta at the moment for being
21:17either just as busy or less or a bit more and um i couldn't find a good assistant designer so i hired
21:26stacy caballero who's awesome here in la i could only have her for a short time um everything on
21:33the handmaid's tale had to be ready for shooting on the second day and so um you know my way of
21:42collaborating is to say please don't complain and keep going uh we honestly didn't sleep we had
21:49a little less than a month to get it all together and this is uh toronto's really interesting and and
21:55really trying because their fashion center kind of went kaput the week oddly karmically the week i got
22:04there um and i don't really recall why but uh they moved the center someplace else and there's no fabric
22:12mills anymore there's just a few in montreal but even that has to be ordered so i actually um spent a
22:20lot of time just trying to call fabrics from all over the world and the crew was really i just i did
22:28everything creatively myself because there was such a large amount of stuff to do in a short period of
22:33time that um yeah it's terrible to say i just didn't trust anybody because i was so worried
22:40about the time that i relied on my crew very heavily to find out the how-to you know all of the
22:47seamstresses and it was really a factory we had to die so much and age so much and um i'm kind of a
22:55control freak i'm embarrassed to say i'm not answering the question well but i do all the research myself
22:59and um yeah i just kind of pray that they'll all fall under line and help me find the working
23:07pieces so what about you marie do you sort of how do you divide labor and all that well i have an
23:14amazing team of people um hannah schneider was my acd and she has worked with me for many years
23:21and uh leslie herman was my supervisor and i have great um crew which actually i could not do the
23:29show without it because so many things change at the last minute on our show and um one of the great
23:35things about having worked with hannah for so long is that she's kind of hard i don't have to explain
23:40to her so it's it's it's wonderful the team that you have worked with and you have a unspoken language
23:45so i know that if i need something to be done in an hour she's going to go ahead and find it where
23:51i um but you know um we also do a lot of situations on the show where the the cast the
24:01families put into different worlds so whether it be a record release company in season three we went
24:08we did um we went to sloss and supermart where maura's a fish out of the water and so each of
24:16those worlds are kind of tackled by um leslie and other customers and then hannah works on principles
24:24and stuff with me and we did work on but um and then everything could change on the last minute on
24:30the set and so i have katie who does my trailer who will call me and be like we have to change this
24:35you know jeffrey won't wear it and uh i'm i've chosen this and i'm like great
24:39because we don't have time to worry about that
24:43now i wanted to bring up uh sort of the differences between costume design and fashion design again
24:49because we're sitting here in the beverly center and you know costume design as i've been told me
24:55obviously you guys are the experts but it's very much about sort of servicing the story and building
24:59character and um all of that now a few of you have also worked in fashion design and i'm curious
25:07if you think i don't know that you can do both if you think and if you think that there could be
25:12more crossover somehow
25:15i i think absolutely because you know so much we see you know you see something on the runway
25:23especially all the paris shows and something and you know if it's a period piece for you know
25:28what you guys do like what lou does or what trish does you know they'll say oh you know let's take
25:34that and tweak it or or you know let's face it everything nothing nothing's um every you can't
25:40reinvent the wheel so you know we've probably seen all of the fashion stuff back you know back all the
25:46time from back in the day so it's kind of like a never-ending circle but there's definitely a crossover
25:51i come from fashion right and um my approach has always been from a fashion point of view and um
25:59in whatever project it is if it's like a cirque de soleil project or a music tour
26:04i always wanted to create like even if someone didn't know how they would wear this like a
26:11desirability in the outfits like i always want people to say like i want that like i want to wear
26:15that but where i don't know but that's the kind of response that i wanted to give to the audience
26:21so it's kind of creating a story either way it is and it's like you know it's like you know i just
26:27came off of gaga's new tour and it's it's everyone's like i want that jack you know the opening leather
26:32jacket and it's like you know it's complete it's i don't know who there's not many people could wear
26:39it but it's it has that feeling of it's fashion but i i have to say it's it's what you're saying
26:45it's like like we all realize there's things on like you know like whether it's couture or ready
26:51to wear there's things that are on the runway and then there's the trickle down theory of what's sold
26:55in stores and so like from my experience you know i did for dragon tattoo i did a um a capsule collection
27:02with h&m and then for catching fire i did a capsule collection with net-a-porter so for me
27:08what was very beneficial for that was you know as costume designers we all know you create a lot
27:15of things for a show you don't own any of them and it all goes to the studio and it also goes
27:23you know it's like you it's it's a very hard thing because we all want to give everything that we can
27:28give every show i mean it's it is the i my wife always has this kind of conversation with me because
27:37i don't know how not to care all the way i don't know how not to work every last minute i don't
27:43know how not to give everything that i can even when things are not going so great you just want
27:50to put everything you can into it because you care so much about the project and so when i was
27:54approached about doing clothing lines it was really exciting and i brokered my own deals and i said this
28:01is what i would like to get this is how i'd like it to go down and i was very very fortunate that i had
28:05a very good support group and what was interesting was doing the two different lines you know it's
28:11like you do h&m which is a certain price point and a very high volume of clothing and so you know i went
28:18to them and and brought in sketches and fabric swatches and everything and h&m was fantastic to
28:24work with because they have they manufacture their fabric they do all the patterns they do everything
28:29in-house so it was me going back and forth to like shanghai and sweden for months to do the fabric
28:34and and do the clothing and do the fittings and then even going back and doing all the the press
28:40release and everything and that was fantastic then i do did a line with net-a-porter for catching fire
28:47which is completely the opposite and it was a smaller quantity that we did but it was a very a bigger
28:53price range and in that situation they're basically like a store they're a buyer they buy things
29:00so i was going to the greater at 2 a.m because i was also working on gone girl so i would go to the
29:07greater at 2 a.m and grade all the patterns and then it was me sourcing all the fabrics and i give
29:12a big shout out to isw who helped me endlessly and were so kind to me and we need to keep them in
29:19business because they're one of our few fabric stores left here in los angeles and safwat and all
29:25those guys did everything they could when i would go in and i pick a fabric and i'm like i need you
29:30know 1500 yards of this and i need i need 4 000 yards of that and they're like what you know and so
29:36and they were great and so for me it was a fantastic experience and really fulfilling to be able to
29:42see stuff i'd done on the screen then be able to trickle down to a fan base and you know in a big like
29:48kind of i mean just a great thing to see is people sending me images or like people posting pictures
29:55of themselves wearing the clothing and you get to see every walk of life you know in the clothes
30:00and that's a great thing to see you know that like how it trickles down from film into being in a store
30:06and then how people working into their into their clothing is there anyone who wouldn't do it
30:10tell us why tell us why just don't have the desire that just makes me break out in a sweat
30:20i already work 16 hours a day and like i can't there's no i've never had i love fashion
30:26but i don't crave to design it for anybody anywhere ever but i i think you have to think about us being
30:35here tonight in the beverly center and you know that is fashion and i started in fashion as a
30:42stylist even here in la and in new york and then went into film later and i think it's you know i'm 53
30:50and i'm at a different place with social media i only know certain things but i know that um
30:58with the whole of it of social media for me it's instagram but there's so much
31:02uh content out there that people are seeing and so fashion is akin to film which is akin
31:09to to fashion it's it's all one thing and you know designers did it back in the day
31:15and it was no big deal i mean it's just bigger now right but i think that where i'm from in kentucky
31:22people are seeing stuff from westworld and from ruse and it's it's awesome because we would have never
31:29seen that when i was growing up i think it's all one thing and i think art and music are involved
31:33with that as well it's more um it's more of a mash-up now right so part of like the visual culture i
31:41guess yeah and it's been interesting to see with handmaids um how people have been inspired to sort
31:45of make their own clothes and things that have been yeah that that has been actually the coolest
31:52thing ever in 28 years of me doing this um it's been a really emotional thing and i've just started
32:01season two and it's um i never was a i don't know if you guys have done this but it was my first time
32:08in all those years having exhibitions in many different kinds of places um like the paley center
32:15but then i went to vogue and that was a whole different arena of kind of more fashion strictly folks
32:22or fashion students you know you maybe have dealt with that a lot but it was so poignant to hear the
32:28stories even politically of certain people from different countries that resonated with the
32:34material and even hello women and men in in our country for god's sakes you know it it's really been
32:42quite large and it's hard to even talk about and put it into you know words that make sense but it's
32:50very emotional and very empowering and very fulfilling yeah it's been interesting to watch um
32:56okay so you mentioned the fabric store and i'm and i'm curious from all of you you know i know you have
33:03a million resources all around the world but is there a place in la that you would call out that's just
33:08like your hidden gem of where we can't call it out if it's our hidden gem
33:16come on lou's like don't like a jewelry source lou has shared some her vintage jewelry sources
33:24well i would like to say because we're at the beverly center and they're celebrating us and
33:28we're celebrating them i moved here in 1991 and i was an assistant to a stylist and i shopped for the
33:35very first time at traffic which is here in the beverly center sarah and michael
33:40they're like family and every delicious person that works with them through the years uh
33:47that's my secret gem and and also goes back to the question about inspiration where we get
33:53inspiration i will walk in there so tired and overwhelmed and they'll give me a bottle of water
33:57and they will show me things that are hidden under a rack or in some sale item in the back and it is
34:05that piece that then i get to go back and be the hero to an actor and so that is my secret gem right here
34:16those ladies are sitting in the very back row
34:18anyone else have like a vintage store or uh i don't know uh i have one but i have to ask my
34:28girl amy paris who remembers everything she's a designer out there there's a there's the trim shop
34:34downtown that we always go to and get millions of target trim which is like a beautiful dusty
34:42magic store with millions of little things and uh they've really helped us on so many shows that's
34:50my little secret marie i i don't know if this is a hidden gem um but i i love golly esther on la brea
34:57and she's been here for years and um i found some amazing pieces there um either that have been
35:03things that are inspiration or um pieces i've used on the show the rainbow caftan that maura
35:09oh yeah which became the symbol of the show is from golly esther and i found it actually months
35:15before we started shooting and i bought it with my own money because i was like this is amazing
35:21piece um but she's an amazing curator with a wonderful eye and um you know you always see
35:28i saw a bet betsy johnson coming out of there which is a great star sighting so you know everybody
35:33kind of goes there for inspiration anyone else alex or perry i think anywhere downtown i mean you
35:40know the resources downtown now are absolutely astounding and every time i go down there my
35:45workroom's down there and i'll walk down the street and go wait that wasn't here yesterday you know
35:49there's a pop-up store with you know trim and and jewelry and and you know a lot every chachki under
35:57this arm for two dollars do you zaldi do you do all of your you know shopping for for things for
36:05your designs here in la or no i mean i'm because i'm i'm from new york so it's everything is normally
36:10from new york but in new york what i try to do is i mean there's so many like the fashion district is
36:17kind of dying there so you have all these like old school factories like people that like a factory
36:24that only makes spaghetti like spaghetti straps yeah and so i'm just like i'm gonna make a spaghetti
36:30strap a full spaghetti strap dress because you want to keep them in business you know and it's like
36:35those are the gems that are really disappearing yeah it's also the quilting here like quilting that was
36:42the thing like you know trying to people that did pleating yeah you know we all know who's going
36:47out of business with pleating then i'm like can i buy the machines for you will you stay in business
36:51we buy the machines it's like i mean there's so many old-fashioned trades i mean millenaries cobblers
36:58it's like for us it's all so important and we desperately want these people to stay in business
37:04you know but it's a it's there's a lot of dying art that's happening a dying art that was gone now you
37:09know for us like people that just simply dye fabrics you know which are all really important to us i just
37:15want to say one thing about that too is that we rely so much now on um internet shopping for our
37:22business but many times as costume designers we can't get even that's not fast enough so we do we
37:29need you know the craftsmen and um that's what's great about having the beverly center here or places
37:33where we can do things you know in less than 24 hours um yes that as that progresses more towards the
37:42internet i think it will be more and more of a challenge for us as costume designers um marie
37:47you talked about the rainbow caftan as kind of a hero piece of of your show um lou will you talk
37:53about the oscar gown that you um made for uh for joan crawford's character that was very involved right
38:01yeah it kind of goes back to where i said i got cocky like that's just the 60s we're just going to
38:06replicate but and it just wasn't because it to get a dress fully beaded that dress was designed by
38:12edith head but it was completely hand beaded and so we sourced it around town and it would have been
38:17about 20 to 40 grand and taken two weeks and i had like two days so we finally so we sourced the fabric
38:25from new york but it was a white beaded and ryan wanted silver silver silver silver hair silver dress
38:30silver everything so we carefully took a collective breath and we dipped it and dyed it and then
38:38found a silver lining literally and then uh made a but but the gen the dress was really heavy and so
38:46jessica had to wear it one day for an exterior scene and um at the end of the night she's like lulubel
38:52i can't wear that i'm gonna break my back you gotta find a way to make this dress fit me or not be so
38:57heavy so we had to and it worked the next morning so we were all up all night building corsets into
39:02it and figuring how to lift the weight up and so she wouldn't have to be collapsing into it and uh
39:09so and then oh and then we we found beading that we also had to dip and then our tailor and we only
39:15have one tailor and she has one seamstress and uh and they work in a small room and uh i feed them and
39:23then um they they sat and hand beaded the whole front so so it looks a little bit like been dyed and
39:32hand beaded up close so don't look too close does anyone else have a favorite piece from um or a piece
39:40that was really sort of key to the the storytelling aspect of what they were doing i have a it's probably
39:47not a piece that most people recognize because it's not a principal character but on westworld
39:52um i was really hell-bent on having this leather tooled hat made um and it's for the the male gunslinger
40:02who's the bank robber in the film and the in the in the show and um and it was it was linda foot i don't
40:10know if she's here but linda foot was my supervisor on the show and and her and joe kissick who was the
40:16assistant designer um painstakingly sat with me and we're like are you sure you want this are you
40:20sure you want this because it was the whole thing of like i wanted the whole top of the hat tooled
40:26and i wanted the whole underneath of the hat tool then it was you know everyone we kind of went to
40:30was like well no because we'll we'll make the hat and then we'll press it and i was like no no i need
40:35you to hand tool the underneath of the leather and then i use your hand tool the top and then i need
40:39you to sew it together so for me that was one of the pieces that like i really i really love and it's
40:45quite beautiful and it made everybody really happy on set but i think it's a thing that like
40:50you know it's only like dear in my heart because of it was something i really wanted to have i knew
40:56it was possible and then in the end we got to have it alex do you want to talk about one of the gowns
41:01from the from the episode that you're nominated for um yeah i think that um laura dern's audrey hepburn
41:10ascot interpretation dress was one of my very favorites i have to say um only laura dern could
41:18have ever rocked this dress like the waist is about 12 inches um and it was just this this real peacock
41:26moment this this louise green who uh is extraordinary who's also uh who's a milliner who a lot of us use
41:35made this hat that was my dream come true it just came out of the hat box and it was just like
41:41rainbows were flying everywhere extraordinary um yeah it was a real i think wow moment for
41:49her character and for the scene and i it was really fun to watch her walk in that dress i was very proud
41:57of it anyone else i mean this this season i mean when we start thinking about like um what we're
42:08going to make for the show i meet with my team and you know i'm like oh well you know what kind of
42:14technique do you want to do or you know what are you feeling and um one of my main pattern maker is
42:21japanese and she's like i want to paint something and i was like why don't you paint you know do
42:27calligraphy and do's painting kanji like all of rupaul's sayings and so she did she got very into
42:34it and uh just painted all of all of like ruse you know like sashay shantay in kanji which there's no
42:42there's no real translation but she like made it so that it's kind of legible but that became like a
42:48real special special moment for her that was an amazing piece what was the hardest thing for you
42:54for or kind of i mean i think i've read a lot about treating those bonnets was pretty the the bonnets
43:02were something that none of us usually are allowed to use right no hats and tv and film and uh no
43:10sunglasses and so we fought against it and um i was insistent that we try we all tried to be as true
43:18as we could to margaret atwood's book which in the end had the wings and in the film they had scarves
43:24which i also adore and um yeah i ended up making sort of five and taking them to new york to try on
43:32lizzie and she just you know magically on camera turned on my iphone and everybody gasped when i showed
43:39them in toronto and they said there has to be a way to let light through and so we ended up making
43:45a million with different levels of linen and buckram and all of that and in the end uh i didn't know
43:52this until after the show the first season was done and i saw the dp in new york and he was he's very
43:59quiet and doesn't say too much on set and i wish he had said it during the season but he said for god's
44:06sakes and you made it the most beautiful light box you know on these women's faces and it you know
44:11it's shot in such a way that it's quite dark but something about it uh even though it's raw and
44:17there's very little makeup it's quite illuminating and beautiful to show a woman's real beauty right
44:23without all the extra so that was kind of incredible yeah yeah it's incredible and perry tell us about
44:29some crazy gaga well it's always the ones that you don't think you know you think are going to be a
44:36throwaway that end up being like the iconic pieces when we did when she did the um grammys which came
44:43out of the egg again yeah the latex you know again it was a change of mind on thursday night you know
44:50she said i don't like any of the stuff i'm wearing she goes i need it all remade here you know i want
44:54it out of this latex and i said well again trying to find resources you know and so again i ended up
45:02kind of doing a lot of most of it pulling two all-nighters on my kitchen table because by the
45:07time it kind of like i would do a ring around and say do you know how to do latex you know no i don't
45:12know how to do it i'll be like i'm just wasting time just do it yourself and so there was two versions
45:18of it and again the second version the backup version i thought i'd better do a backup version just
45:23in case the latex tears and so i didn't kind of finish the backup version fully and so you know
45:31again as we all know with actors and actresses and everything they don't want to try anything on and
45:35they'll just you know so like five minutes before the live show you know they're like okay it's time
45:40to get dressed and she put the first one on and was like it's too tight at the neck i can't it's too
45:45tight i can't breathe get the backup and i was like okay well okay just sure so i put the backup
45:54on and because it wasn't finished properly i could see the zipper start to separate a little bit
46:00and of course it was live tv and i thought oh dear god and so i just i didn't even say anything i just
46:05kind of got some gaff tape and like put it on there and i was literally counting down the number i was like
46:11okay 30 seconds to go okay there's no 40 seconds oh my god she made it and it didn't it didn't make
46:17you know oh my god but it's just it's stuff like that so it could have cracked right off
46:21oh just split right open and you know it would have been a whole nother granny's opening amazing
46:27a whole nother coming out all right i have one final fun question um someone on on the way in here
46:34was like i love costume designers because they always dress the best they have the best style and so i want
46:40i want you all to tell me what you're wearing and why because i'm sure there's a reason because
46:45you're costume designers nobody's going first well okay well i'm actually i'm wearing my own clothes
46:57i'm i have a menswear line so i'm wearing you know so it's easier to kind of go well i like that so i'm
47:02wearing yeah i'm wearing my own stuff what's the name of your line um aussie gear okay yeah amazing
47:07aussiegearla.com excellent excellent i've been staring at your shoes i know
47:16are they those rick owens yeah okay good guess what about you you're in handmaids red i always wear
47:23overalls and coveralls it's very boring and uh and it's it's a boring answer i rented a dress and
47:32had it sent to a hotel and put i put two on and i did a little facetime in toronto and asked which one
47:38and the assistant said wear red so yeah boring and that's probably grown right it is i'm glad you said it
47:47i can't see it yeah marie tell us about your suit well i just wanted to kind of play with the gender
47:53bending to you know idea of fashion and this suit's made by a company in brooklyn called bindle and keep
48:00and there's a documentary about them called suited um they make a lot of suit for suits and pants and
48:08shirts for trans people and they do a beautiful and also for the tv show billions and um they just do
48:16beautiful work i'm i wear a lot of gem suits so it's my go-to this is a ysl that i got at a current
48:27affair which is a vintage pop-up that comes every three months and uh and my road art earrings i never
48:34buy would never wear jewelry but i uh fell in love with these earrings it's so warm tonight
48:38i normally like you know i packed like half an hour before i have to go to the airport and because
48:51i always just like to feel what i'm going to feel like before i go i don't i don't know um but i just
48:58i don't know these pants are really comfortable and i love them and then at the last minute i thought
49:03well maybe it's gonna it's cocktail it's like i should bring a little fancy jacket or something
49:08so it's a drees van noten jacket and pants and uh rick owens top nice nice all right alex
49:18well i literally got off a plane about an hour before i got here was on vacation in a little cabin
49:25where i wear birkenstocks and a moo moo and i was probably scaling a fish this morning
49:33so this is rachel comey and it's got elastic because i've been doing a lot of drinking and eating
49:44all right miss trush what are you wearing and why um i'm wearing mcqueen this is one of my favorite
49:50classic white suits and when i can wear a white suit i will my closet kind of consists of white
49:57gray black and red it's all i have and my anybody who works with me kind of knows the go-to joke is
50:05what's my favorite color gray so yeah in costume design again in life i love gray so yeah mcqueen
50:13just because i'll always be a fan it's always classic to me and your aclu ribbon because yes because
50:19it's very important we all need to rise up rise up stand together yeah well i want to thank you
50:29guys so much for being here and um this is wonderful it's it's great to have you all and uh best of luck
50:36good luck at the amy is
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