😍 2022-12-03 21:57:50 – Paris/France.
Spoilers for “Wednesday” ahead
The mere mention of the Addams Family conjures up a familiar image in our collective minds. You know what we are talking about. You see it right now: a stern, brooding family in equally intense clothes washed in a monochromatic color palette.
A touch of white is nothing more than an accent of the strongly oppressive blackness that overcomes the overall gothic aesthetic. This is the version we're used to, and if it isn't broken, why undo the seams and create something new, right?
That wasn't the exact approach costume designer Colleen Atwood took when she started working on Netflix's latest addition to the Addams Family universe, "Wednesday."
Granted, the "Wednesday" designer had a daunting task at hand: how to craft a set of iconic family costumes that felt nostalgically familiar, yet still remain dramatic and individual in their own right. No pressure.
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According to Colleen, her plan was to start by establishing who each character was before infusing them with her own vision. The result was quite inspired.
“I played with Morticia,” he says, telling us about the experimental designs that came up before landing on the classic, severe, alluring look that nails Morticia Addams to a T.
To be honest, I never wanted to change the shape, because it's very much her, but I played around a bit. I made a leather one, which was cool, but that was too much, you know? It didn't feel as motherly as we wanted it to or as approachable. He just looked more fashionable.
A leather-clad Morticia sounds incredible, but after going through the eight-episode series, it becomes clearer why, from a narrative perspective, it wouldn't have worked. Colleen's instincts were good, she would fundamentally disagree with Catherine Zeta-Jones' interpretation of the character. Even if she shows a darker maternal love.
So Colleen leaned towards the original look with a modern twist, a decision that paid off.
Netflix
“I went back to draped fabric. I had a little new discovery with the little things I made, which are two pieces of fabric that are molded together and then twisted, to give the kind of side flaps on it that give it a bit of modernity. » .
The show isn't called Morticia though, so when it comes to the main character, Colleen made sure not to disappoint.
His goal was to take the Wednesday we know and love and make it more eye-catching. Comparing her Wednesday's edgy, super sharp and freshly starched look to what came before it, the designer said:
It is a slightly more pointed collar; It's a bit over the top in some ways and it's very over the top in the setting it's set in, because it's set in this colorful American public school. Then she goes to Nevermore Academy and we lose that costume there, and she puts on a uniform that's her individual uniform, separate from the rest of them.
Netflix
But at the same time, it's a starting point where we could take Wednesday to a new place that's more accessible, and mix it up a bit with actual clothing, and see more dimensions of the character.
Wednesday's very straight look also served to combat Jenna Ortega's very serious face "problem".
"With his face being such an angelic type of face, I wanted to frame it in a bit of a harsh way, rather than having it in things that were flowing," Colleen says of Ortega's transformation into dark Wednesday Addams. .
She's a complex person in the sense that you never know what advantage you'll get when she throws one of her lines. It was just kind of a choice for that. There's always a permanent nod to the original dress I made with the pointed collar. It comes down to that, but I exaggerated. I put it with different things to bring it into a kind of modern world.
Colleen admits that working on Wednesday's look has been quite rewarding.
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I always worked with black and white for their costumes, which is graphic. This juxtaposition of black and white can be a fun thing to play around with, just artistically.
The experimentation did not stop there. As for the rest of the Addams Family, Colleen has toyed with many different ideas in the context of past looks.
Gomez had a body that was fun to play with because it's so round and you scratch yourself up and down. So I knitted a lot of little bits and pieces to keep this jacket straight on his body, to try to keep Addams' linear cartoon kind of stuff on his clothes. With the Pugsley sweater, I worked with a knitter and we hand-drawn jagged lines instead of pure horizontal stripes. It has been artistically woven. They were wavy stripes, to give it a sort of modern vibe.
While Wednesday is a story about Wednesday Addams, the character has been conceptualized in a whole new way.
Netflix
The series explores who Wednesday is far from the wintery bosom of her familiar surroundings and immerses her in a whole new environment with completely different classmates.
Nevermore Boarding School is home to not only Wednesday, but also werewolves, vampires, mermaids, and many other mystical creatures, all of which needed their own looks. Most of the time, the students wear their black and purple striped uniforms, but it's the details and the accessories that count.
What I wanted to do was something similar to what kids do in modern uniform-oriented schools. Everyone has done something to their uniform to make it their own. Which I really like to watch. He is handsome.
Netflix
Xavier's purple hoodie under his blazer is a prime example of this customization. It certainly matches the haunting artistic air he has. “It had to be the most modern, you know? Colleen admits with a smile. Then there were the gorgonians, whose jellyfish-like hair posed practical challenges in the design room.
We played around a lot with how this snakehead thing was going to work. We tried on a lot of different hats because they didn't really want me to wear big wigs, with snakes all over them. weird. In the end, we got the usual kind of hats, as they call them there, that they wear. I love it when he talks, and a little cower. It was a perfect solution to what could have been a nightmare for us.
The children of Nevermore may have tweaked their costumes to give them their own distinctive flair, but it has to be said that the uniforms were quite stylish to begin with.
Netflix
Unlike many of our real-life experiences where we were forced to wear those dull gray pants and pristine white shirts, Colleen spared her students that mediocre agony.
I really wanted it to be special, with the stripes on the skirts. Like having purple at the top, black at the bottom, and creases. You see it in a few takes. When they move, it's purple, and when they move the other way, it's black.
One character who could never be accused of living a monotonous life is the werewolf Enid. Colleen may have tapped into the same imaginative pool as Wednesday when she created Enid's look, but they couldn't be more stuffed.
With Enid I used graphics, but it was always in color. Instead of just being a pastel bunny type person. I did the same idea as for Wednesday, but with furry textures and mohair things, but still with a graphic sense in which they balance each other in two different ways.
Netflix
This, he admits, was intentional. Enid is the extreme, bubblegum, shiny version of Wednesday's dark and macabre look. A choice that further underscored their differences by infusing their polar opposite dynamic into their garments.
When asked if she boosted Enid's vitality to create this juxtaposition between the two, Colleen replied:
Yes definitely. When we did our first test with them, we did it together because they were roommates. They were together a lot, in many scenes. As we were recording for Enid and doing things for her, I always went for a graphic design, and kind of took the pastels, and didn't make them too weak. I wanted them to have some power, so they could balance the strength of the graphics, the black and white.
Enid definitely brings out the color as a festive pop. It's strong, it's in your face, and it's that kind of crazy pleasure that always takes you by surprise even when it's expected. Ms. Thornhill is another with a certain unconventional vibrancy, if much more understated. However, creating her look had the potential to be tricky, but not for any of the reasons you might think.
Colleen has already proven that when it comes to eclectic looks, she delivers. Therefore, the problem lay in the actress behind the role.
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Played by a former Wednesday, Christina Ricci, Colleen was tasked with stripping Ricci of all associations from her previous Wednesday role and getting us to see her again. He succeeded. Unlike Wednesday's basic monochromatic starter pack, Ms. Thornhill has bold prints, colors and large glasses that are a nice feature on her face.
I had a great time with Christina. Luckily, he's the kind of person who wears vintage well. I got into this plant thing, kind of took a theme, and a loose palette of plants and things, and played with their costumes.
That kind of forward-thinking creative thinking is perhaps why Wednesday star Gwendoline Christie called Colleen one of the greatest costume designers to ever live in an interview with Digital Spy.
Netflix
Having worked on Star Wars, "The Sandman" and "Game of Thrones," Christie is used to performing in shows in elaborate and grandiose costumes, and "Wednesday" was no different. He praised how Colleen managed to transform her into the character of Weems, the director of Nevermore, while celebrating her body.
Colleen is clearly touched by this distinction. He quickly acknowledges Gwendoline's feelings with a "it's nice of you" before explaining the choices he made that helped...
SOURCE: Reviews News
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