The costume designer for the over-the-top looks in Disney's new film Cruella revealed that she wanted the clothing to tell its own story throughout the film.
"I always say, in case people get the wrong impression, I'm not a fashion designer; I'm a storyteller with clothes," Jenny Beavan shared during a press conference for the film attended by CBR. "In fact, in my real life, I have no interest in clothes. I just love telling stories with them. So for me, that was just brilliant."
Beavan added that she was excited to make costumes for the Cruella film, in particular because it featured "these beautifully written characters that you could just get your teeth into."
"The baroness is actually terribly clear once you get into that mindset of who she is and where her influences came from and her current situation," she continued. "It was obviously a slight Dio Balenciaga. I mean, all those great sort of '50s/'60s fashion designers." Beavan added, "She's a very good designer. She's just slightly past her sell-by date."
Beavan also described how the baroness' style really started to take shape when she teamed up with a maker named Jane Law, noting, "We just found a style for her, and it was obviously asymmetric and very fitted, very snobbish, I think I'd call it."
"We just had fun, and I just used to go down to her, Jane's, with a car full of fabric and we'd throw it on the stand and just invent, really," the designer continued. "It was brilliant...She comes from a strong storyline costume arc, really."
Meanwhile, the film's hair and makeup designer Nadia Stacey added that she "wanted this kind of very perfected sculpted look for [the baroness]," in comparison to the punk rock vibes characteristic of Emma Stone's Cruella.
"I liked the idea that she's perfect; you know, it's much more '50s reference for her, and that she's perfected her look, and everything is kind of variation on a theme," Stacey revealed. "Whereas with Cruella, she's finding herself and testing and playing with things. But with the baroness, it's very kind of figured out... There's a kind of chaos to Cruella's look, and then this completely clean, structured line to the baroness."
Directed by Craig Gillespie, Cruella stars Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Paul Walter Hauser, Joel Fry, Emily Beecham, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Mark Strong. The film is currently available in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access.
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