Meet Oscar Nominated Costume Designer Jacqueline Durran
Among the most prolific women working in the film industry, Jacqueline Durran has designed costumes for many of our favorite films such as Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, and Anna Karenina. In 2017, she did the costumes for Beauty and the Beast and Darkest Hour, both of which she is nominated for an Oscar (adding to her slew of previous nominations and wins). The field of costume design is quite mysterious, so we posed a few questions to Jacqueline about her creative process — and exactly how she designed the Beast’s wardrobe! Learning about her career history is enormously inspiring, whether or not you’re pursuing a similar path in entertainment.
Smart Girls: You began your career as an assistant costume designer on some big films like The World is Not Enough and Star Wars Episode II. Did you study costume design before that, or how did you begin working in the film industry?
I didn’t study costume design. I started working in the film industry by going to work at a costume house in Dublin called Angels where they hire costumes. And so then I started to learn what the job entailed. I met costume designers and I worked with the costume designers and I started to see the difference between the costume designs’ pattern work. And I learned about stitching and little things.
Can you describe the creative process you go through in conceptualizing and designing a costume?
I think all the questions are historical drama focused. So research the world or the period that the film is taking place in. Then you start to try your best to guess those images. You can find a way to turn the characters in that world. You have so many opportunities in the world that you have to kind of condense it down and down and finally that tells the story for you.
Did you create the costumes for the main Beauty and the Beast cast yourself, or do a lot of shopping around?
Oh no, they were all created by the costume department. We made all of the principal costumes and most of the crowd costumes. We made about five hundred costumes for that movie.
Which character in Beauty and the Beast was the most challenging to dress?
Which character in Beauty and the Beast? I think there are two answers to that. One is Belle. Because getting the details of her costume right so that she maintains her iconic look but it would change in live action — that was a real challenge. The ultimate challenge was the Beast because he was a prosthetic that needs to fill all of his clothes. The body of the Beast was a challenge to fit because, with all the recurrences, it almost might be different depending which person was inside the Beast costume. So we needed lots of different versions of the same costume. So both of those were the biggest challenges of Beauty and the Beast.
Can you elaborate on that last part about the Beast?
Ok. The Beast. Not only was the body of the Beast a body shape that was bulging, a strange shape, it was difficult to fit. Also, there were 4 or 5 people that were going to play him. Like a different stunt man or actors. And each time that a different person was embodying the beast, they were a slightly different shape. We had lots of different versions of the costume made for the different fits. That was one of the challenges of making a prosthetic Beast. In the end, it was CG but the costumes we made were sent to America and their costumes were digitally reproduced.
Where did you draw inspiration for the Beast and his wardrobe?
It was very hard. There are two parts to the Beast wardrobe. One is a very animalistic part where we can’t even tell he has a beastly body. You can’t see what he’s wearing. His clothes are practically ragged, feathered, and thick. He wears a navy cloak. The inspiration for that would be ancient clothing or different natural textile and texture. For the other part of the costume, is when he starts to become like people again. He starts to wear clothes like a gentleman. The inspiration for those came from historical costumes.
With Darkest Hour, did you do a lot of research about Winston Churchill and that period?
Yes. We did a lot of research about Winston Churchill during that period. We had a lot of pictures and we had picture references to the exact day that were being reproduced for the film. So we would use, say for example on the 8th of May, exactly what he would wear because there were pictures of him on the 8th of May. So we had that sort of period May clothes. Different parts of his clothes, his tie, his shirt and we went back if possible and we had them reproduce parts of the costume for us.
What are the added challenges of working on a period film?
I think there are a lot of challenges in the availability of fabric, and the availability of cuts. People don’t know how to cut period costumes or trim all those things you need to make the costume look authentic. I think also in what you want to be made, the challenge is finding the tools, the people, the fabric and everything you need to reproduce the pieces. That’s the biggest test. The other thing, of course, is to understand the period and society to know which costumes are going to be the best suited to the character you are creating.
Darkest Hour is now available on Digital and Blu-Ray.
Huge congratulations to you, Jacqueline, and we’ll be tuning into the Academy Awards on March 4th!
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