Costume Designer Albert Wolsky Talks About Designing for Revolutionary Road.
The outfits look deceptively simple - almost as though you'd just need to consult a few vintage copies of Vogue Magazine from the mid- 50's to come up with the designs.
But this creaseless perfection is part of the drama in Revolutionary Road, a film that addresses the soul crushing, homogenizing effect the American dream has on characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
Costume designer Albert Wolsky talked with the Los Angeles Times recently about his process for his Oscar nominated costume design in this film. Here are a few of his comments:
LAT: Was it tricky getting Leo in that '40s feel?
WOLSKY: He took to it
immediately. Our only caveat together was that men wore their pants down to
around their ankles. I said, "Leo, the pants have to be up against your waist,
and he looked in the mirror, and we pulled up the pants to where they need to
sit, and he said, 'Really?' So the rest of the movie, his dresser had to keep
pulling his pants up. But he totally understood.
LAT: Kate's character sees herself as special, being artistic and slightly above
everyone else. How does that come through in her clothing?
WOLSKY: At the
happy birthday party in the flashback when she was wearing the black dress,
that's one time you see her in a dress with an artistic flair. That's her most
adventurous moment, where the hair's long and straight, and she's dressed the
most like an actress or a model. Later, she becomes the housewife and it's much
more structured, but she always looks slightly different. If she goes to the
neighbors, she's in a tighter, much more sleek-looking dress as a subtle way of
keeping her apart without really nailing it, so you go, "Oh, my God, look at
her!"
LAT: Kathy Bates' costumes seemed earlier than the '50s, like she was trapped in
the previous decade.
WOLSKY: I kept her a little more old-fashioned. In those
days, high fashion from Paris didn't go right to the streets right away, the way
it does now. Kathy Bates' costumes are barely out of the '40s.
Read the entire interview on The Envelope. See more Best Costume Design Nominees here.
I thought this was an interesting comparison below, on the left a shot from Vogue Magazine June 1952, and on the right a set photo from Revolutionary Road. The idyllic silhouette is unmistakable.
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