Costume design is a rather underrated art form. It is a tool of cinematic storytelling, a way of conveying information to an audience– about character, backstory, any number of things– without explicitly stating it out loud. And with superhero movies in particular, this is a VERY underrated form– as it requires a costumer to take a two-dimensional image from a comic page (usually designed to be visually striking rather than practical or functional) and translate it into a tactile, credible suit of clothing that makes sense in the context of the narrative reality of the story the filmmakers are telling.
So for today’s Day Thread and subsequent Night Thread, I want to highlight some instances of superhero costume design for live-action that I feel went above and beyond in terms of creatively interpreting the design from the page, and using it to tell us more about the character and the world. (I’m sure a couple of my picks will be kinda surprising!)
10. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban), Dredd
Okay, I promise this isn’t going to be a list of gritty, realistic superheroes wearing flak jackets! But if you were going to single out ANY of them, I’d say the battered and beaten Judge Dredd would be the standout. Clad in a big, weathered helmet and a dingy, battered vest… golden badge scratched up and faded, brassy shoulder pads tarnished, biking leathers scuffed up and filthy. One look at this version of Dredd tells you immediately that things are not going well in Mega-City One. This is OLD gear, maybe even hand-me-downs; the Justice Department doesn’t have the resources to outfit their Judges with fresh gear. So he’s probably been wearing this a long, looooooong time.
9. Captain America (Chris Evans), Captain America: The First Avenger
The first Captain America movie had probably the hardest task of all the MCU films, costume-wise: translating one of the goofiest, most openly jingoistic superhero outfits on the page into a period-accurate uniform that wouldn’t look absurd running around in the middle of World War II. The filmmakers pretty much perfectly nail the balance of superhero fantasy and believability with this: a heavily-modified flight suit and combat helmet with a muted (but still very much there) color scheme; brown leather gloves, boots, and belt; and a burnished metal shield that loses paint when it gets shot. Note the inventiveness of turning the red stripes on his stomach into harness straps! This may not be actually functional, but it feels practical.
8. The Joker (Jared Leto), Suicide Squad
Yeah! You heard me! In possibly the most controversial pick on this list (until tonight, anyway), I think the concept and costuming of Suicide Squad‘s Joker is actually pretty clever! The Joker was always conceived of as a carnival-funhouse pastiche of a 1930s gangster, and the DCEU version of the character is a contemporization of that idea: an ostentatious, heightened parody of a Florida drug kingpin, best illustrated by his bright purple faux-alligator-skin trench coat, gold chains, and shirtless look1. The bling, the tats… he looks ridiculous, of course, but he’s the JOKER. Ridiculousness should be the aim! Unfortunately, neither writer/director David Ayer nor slimeball actor Jared Leto seemed to be in on the joke, and they tried to play this version of the character as a straight, scary badass. It, uh… didn’t work.
7. Superman (David Corenswet), Superman
So I know this movie hasn’t even come out yet, and it may be bad form to judge a suit before you’ve seen it in action… but from the set photos alone, I’m already sold. While the broadest strokes of the outfit are all classic Superman– the bright red, yellow, and blue color scheme, the returning red trunks with a yellow belt, and the yellow “S” shield on the cape– the EXECUTION is wholly unique. The thicker material, looser fit, and far more abstract, alien-looking “S” logo2 suggest to me that Supes is wearing actual Kryptonian clothing– as in, the kind of thing the non-invulnerable people of Krypton would wear on their home planet. He’s in space-wear!
Think about it: this is the first live-action Superman to make it to the screen who isn’t just wearing a set of tights. For all the previous movies and TV shows, they’ve just shrugged and said, “I guess this is what they wear on Krypton?” without changing a thing about the suit. But this is the first time they’ve designed the suit to look like something an alien would actually WEAR.
6. Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), Batman Returns
For the inky black world of Tim Burton, Catwoman was reimagined as a more complex, psychologically fractured character. So fittingly, her costume is a stark, shiny black patchwork, conceived of as a vinyl jacket that Selina tore to pieces and then stitched back together as a Franken-cat fetish suit. How she managed to get a whole corset out of that jacket is beyond me, but the suit serves as a brilliant form of storytelling: her claws are made of thimbles and sewing needles (reclaiming traditionally feminine gender signifiers as weapons against patriarchal oppressors), and the suit starts tearing apart as the film goes to illustrate her deteriorating mental and emotional state. It’s an excellent tool of characterization.
Now… where she got the bullwhip? I’m at a loss for that one.
Come back for tonight’s Night Thread if you want to see the final five picks!
You must be logged in to post a comment.