In Bonjour Tristesse, the directorial debut from writer Durga Chew-Bose based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan, we meet Cécile, played by Lily McInerny, a moody teenager on holiday in the south of France with her dad Raymond (Claes Bang), and his younger lover Elsa (Nailia Harzoune). Her days are idyllically spent smoking cigarettes, dancing, and kissing Cyril (Aliocha Schneider), the literal boy next door; until the arrival of Anne (Chloë Sevigny), a fashion designer and an old friend of Raymond and Cécile’s late mom threatens to disturb her vision of paradise.
It is a quiet film, where the colors of the ocean, the sound of the wind, and stolen glances have as much weight as any line of dialogue, so it’s not surprising that fashion also plays an important role. Chew-Bose enlisted the costume designer Miyako Bellizzi, of Uncut Gems fame, who excels at creating characters who look and feel real despite the fantastical twist and turns they might take. Bellizzi brought on Cynthia Merhej, the designer behind the IYKYK brand Renaissance Renaissance, and a semi-finalist for this year’s LVMH Prize, who mixes tailoring with playful volumes and a myriad of textures to create a sensual yet off-kilter silhouette. Merhej’s clothing is an essential part of the film as it plays the “role” of Anne’s creations, and thus another way through which we can perceive and understand her complicated character. Ahead of the film’s release on May 2, I spoke with Bellizzi and Merhej about developing characters through the content of a single carry-on bag, using light to find the perfect shade of butter yellow, and the ways in which work influences their personal styles.
How did you get involved in the project?
Miyako Bellizzi: Durga reached out to me about the project about a year before—so we’d been talking about it for a long time. And then it was Durga who brought me and Cynthia together. Before we had a character, before Chloë had been cast, Cynthia and I were already talking.
Cynthia Merhej: When I first read the script and read Anne’s character, I felt like I could relate to her in a lot of ways; and I understood why Durga thought of me for it.
MB: Yes, I feel like, Cynthia, you as a person are very similar to Anne. The three of us had all these ideas of how to take inspiration from the original film, which is from the 1950s, and use it to create characters that are timeless. Then we were waiting to see who was cast. And as soon as it was Chloë we were like, ok wait, this changes everything!
CM: Everything became more edited.
MB: Yes, it’s not just about her character, but about what she would wear on vacation, which is different from what she would wear in her everyday life. Chloë was really tapped into that; she was like, ‘I have one carry-on bag—if you have space for one button-down shirt, what shirt are you going to bring if you have one skirt?’ We thought about how things mix together. Even if they don’t really go together, let’s put them together. Like: This is what you’re bringing on vacation, so you make it work.
CM: We did a lot of little pieces: skirts, a robe you can wear to the beach, little tops and pants, and Miyako mixed and matched things together to really bring out her character. I feel with Lily McInerney’s character Cécile, it was simpler because Miyako had envisioned her as wearing easy pieces like swimsuits and t-shirts most of the time, so there was just one dress for her. It was very straightforward.
MB: Yes, also Cécile’s character doesn’t really care [about clothes], so she can wear the same thing multiple times. This is the first film that I’ve done where I’ve had so many women, and that’s what was so interesting to me. I think for the most part people know me from styling men, so it was really incredible for me to be able to do three completely different women in the summertime.
Yes, I love that Cécile wears the same swimsuit almost the whole movie. Miyako, you’re very good at styling characters that are grounded in reality. But Cécile also has that special moment, when Anne gives her a dress, which is in a way a coming-out dress.
CM: The famous yellow dress! I got a really cute message the other week from someone that wants that dress for their prom. Miyako had very specific ideas on the shade of the dress. There was a scene where she’s supposed to fall on the floor and you’re supposed to see a bit from under the skirt and we liked this idea of a flash of pink that’s a little bit secretive, a little bit seductive, and still quite naive and young and innocent, because that’s who she still is.
MB: The original dress was black. In the script, there’s a scene where Cécile sees [Raymond and Anne] in the car, and it’s nighttime. I thought, it’s going to be lit from overhead, how do we make sure we can see the dress when she’s walking? She’s upset. It needs to illuminate in the moonlight—or the refrigerator light—so we tested different fabrics. I’ve been really fortunate to work with legends in the film industry like Darius Khondji, probably one of the most famous DPs in the world, and he really taught me a lot. When we were on the set of Uncut Gems, we would do these lighting tests at night and during the day in his truck with the costumes. And now when I read a script, I think ‘Okay, what would Darius do?’
What’s your creative process like?
MB: Every film is different. This one especially in the sense that it’s contemporary, but it’s based off of a vintage film. I wanted it to be timeless. Durga and I sent images back and forth to each other to create the world, and asked questions: What would you wear on holiday in the summer? What do Europeans wear when they pack and live in the summer on the sea? Has it changed or stayed the same over the last 70 years?
CM: I work in a similar way where I’m using a lot of different things: drawings, photos, collage, whatever. Usually I get the ideas really fast in my brain and in a flash I just have to scribble everything down. Depending on how much time I have, I’ll do proper drawings or just go ahead and start draping and making things.
In the film there is a scene where Anne is sketching and they show your drawings.
CM: It was a really weird process. I got a bit blocked to be honest. I thought, should I draw as Anne or should I draw as me? Because drawing is such an intimate process: my sketching is rough and I like when things are very imperfect and weird and not symmetrical, but I didn’t feel Anne would be that weird so I tried to be more precise in my drawings.
Does working on a project like this influence your own style?
MB: I think so, because it’s all you’re thinking about so you kind of become it. I don’t know if you feel the same way, Cynthia. But it was also a bit of a fantasy too, because I was living this other life in the south of France. So you’re in a different place physically and mentally and you dress differently when you’re in different places, and then there’s a definite reset when you get back to New York. It was like, ‘Alright, I’m back in my sneakers.’
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
