From a jumping Chicago in the Jazz Age to the rabbit hole of Tim Burton’s gothic fantasias, Oscar-winning Colleen Atwood’s imprint on the world of costume design looms large. For her instalment of Vogue’s Life in Looks, she starts from 1990’s Edward Scissorhands.
“It was a visceral process,” she recalls of costuming Burton’s movie. “[Edward] was born from Orchard Street, Canal Street...back in the ’80s when there were all these boxes of leathers and finds that these guys sold.” Atwood would visit street sellers and pick up strips of textured, mis-matched leather to create what would become one of cinema’s most recognizable costumes. There’s only two authentic Edward Scissorhands costumes around, because they wouldn’t make multiples then. Seeing Depp slip on those scissored hands for the first time? “It was magical,” she says.
It was a period of time when Atwood’s costuming was influenced by Jean Paul Gaultier’s early work with stretch and non-stretch fabrics to create movement and dimension—long before stretch leather. Next, in 1990, came The Handmaid’s Tale: where the red robes and headscarves of the women in Margaret Atwood’s dystopia first came to life strikingly. In 1991, Atwood worked on The Silence of the Lambs. “Oftentimes in costuming, you’re making things and you want them to have a feeling of being manufactured, not so craft orientated,” explains Atwood. This thinking came into play for Anthony Hopkins’s mask. Should it be leather, or rope? Basic, or old-fashioned? Atwood looked at hockey masks. “That was really the best tech at the time,” she says. While she wanted to paint her prototype, she realized upon its arrival that it looked like dead skin—perfect.
1994’s Little Women was Atwood’s first period film. “I was able to find a lot of authentic fabrics,” she says. “I bought a lot of dresses from the period that were half rotten, but I took them apart and repurposed the material. I really felt like it was art imitating life.” It familiarized Atwood with a world she would come to know well through her career.
Beloved, starring Oprah Winfrey, was a 1998 job. Atwood says working with actors is always a “collaborative process.” “Some actors are very engaged by it, and some are like, ‘What am I going to wear?!’” says Atwood. Winfrey, though, was deeply respectful of both writer Toni Morrison’s original vision and Atwood’s costume design ideals. Working with Christina Ricci on 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, Atwood recalls that it was her first movie made in the UK. They weren’t happy (or were at least suspicious), she says, about how she was constructing the clothes—expanding the silhouettes, cutting the shapes. People were reluctant to accept her—“I wasn’t Janet Arnold,” she says, referring to the famed British fashion historian and costumer.
“Once we got into it and they saw what I was doing with the fabrics and the lighting they were really excited,” she continues. “it was a great turnaround for me as a designer working with fellow artisans.” Everything then was sewn by hand, so the finishing was tantamount, and Atwood found herself working with fellow artists and designers on a whole new level.
Next was 2002’s Chicago—and while she was inspired by the dynamic photography of Man Ray, she didn’t have much budget to work with. Dance scenes were shot across 16 hour days in one costume—again, no multiples. “You just stood on the side, poised with a needle and thread, waiting for something to blow up on you,” she remembers.
2004 was Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Atwood promised herself to create textiles. Jim Carey’s suit, for example, is made of strips of wool cut with metal base behind it to create a strange iridescent texture. Memoirs of a Geisha, in 2005, was a “terrifying prospect.“ “You’re honoring a culture…it was important for me to know what was real,” says Atwood. While the actors were tall and willowy, original Geisha clothing was made for smaller women. She went to an art exhibition in Tokyo of illustrations of Geishas that totally inspired her to play with the proportions. “It set me free,” she says.
Nine, starring Nicole Kidman, reminds Atwood of a fashion era she loves most. “Early ’60s, high Italian fashion is one of my favorite periods,” she says. “It s just so classically elegant, and it’s throwaway at the same time. It isn’t as stuffy as the Americans were…you believe people actually wore it.” It helped that the cast dripped in Chopard jewelry too.
One of her most special collaborations was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, pushing the ideas of a beloved character with costume and new technology. Years later, Netflix’s Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega, continued that. For the live-action Little Mermaid, Atwood worked with a digital artist to design each of the sisters’s tails. Then, on Masters of Air, she got even more into the manufacturing side of things. And it was working with Paul Thomas Anderson on One Battle After Another that was “like no other.” Deep, detailed, a fluid process that brought everything to life—exactly how Atwood likes to work.
“That was my life in looks,” Atwood concludes. “At least half my life in looks!”
Director: Julie Goldstone
Director of Photography: Vivian Lau
Editors: Lika Kumoi, Katie Wolford
Producer: Chase Lewis
Associate Producer: Lea Donenberg
Assistant Camera: Ness Bevins
Gaffer: Pedro Penteado
Audio: Gloria Marie
Production Assistants: Comfort Abiodun, Spencer Matheson
Makeup Artist: Maureen Sherwood
Production Coordinator: Tanía Jones
Production Manager: Kristen Helmick
Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Senior Talent Manager: Mica Medoff
Executive Producer: Rahel Gebreyes
Senior Director, Digital Video: Romy van den Broeke
Senior Director, Programming: Linda Gittleson
VP, Video Programming: Thespena Guatieri
Filmed on Location: The Maybourne Beverly Hills
