While Last Night In Soho, the latest film from Edgar Wright, has been making its rounds amongst the critics, people are definitely in agreement about one thing: the dresses are fantastic. In an interview with Vogue, costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux talks of her inspirations for these fashionable designs.
When asked to talk about the process of making the dresses for both the female leads of the film, Dicks-Mireaux said, "I had a maker who made all the bespoke costumes. We started off with the newspaper dress. It was all about the silhouette, and rather than going for something more dramatic, like a fishtail look, we went for something more open that allowed her to move. And the peach dress had to inspire [Eloise]. Most of the dresses from that period were just straight shifts, but I wanted something chiffon-y that moved beautifully. I also wondered where she’d have gotten a dress that’s so glamorous. She’s not a woman of means. Most people [at that time] made their own clothes with paper patterns, so I used those as references. Then there was a red dress which needed to be shorter to say that we were going from 1965 towards 1968. The pattern for it was a Nina Ricci pattern. We tried to make it look a bit more couture."
When asked about the inspiration for the two stunning coats that both Thomasin and Taylor-Joy wear respectively in the film, Dicks-Mireaux said, "In Darling, Julie Christie wears a white mac and on my mood board, I also had Petula Clark singing “Downtown” in a black mac. [The production designer] Marcus [Rowland] was attracted to the idea of a white mac and I thought that was great. Black had been done, we didn’t want to do red because that’s Don’t Look Now and yellow is too joyful and not mysterious enough. In Darling, [Julie] also wears a black dress and I wanted [Anya] to have a sophisticated black lace dress, which is then reflected in the black lace dress that Thomasin wears later on. Then, I was using this vintage white mac as a sample to show what Anya would look like in a mac, and then we put it on Thomasin. Everyone said, “Oh, why doesn’t she buy a white mac?” They were both different styles and in different fabrics. That was a lovely accidental thing that came out of Edgar being so collaborative."
When asked what else has been on her mood board, Dicks-Mireaux said, "For the newspaper dress, I did go through Vogues to look for shapes from the late ’50s and pictures of Jean Shrimpton. We also got pieces out of costume houses in Paris and London, and bought a couple of things from the vintage shops in Covent Garden that we took inspiration from."
Information originally sourced from Vogue.