The Gorgeous Costumes from Cinderella ~ Talking with Designer Sandy Powell #CinderellaEvent

I was invited on an expenses paid trip to LA by Disney to cover the #CinderellaEvent in exchange for my posts of the trip experiences. All opinions are my own.

While on the #CinderellaEvent trip in LA I had the pleasure of sitting down with the amazing costume designer Sandy Powell. The costumes in this movie are beyond gorgeous and it was so great to have the chance to chat with her about them.

How do you decide on the colors you will use for the costumes?

Sandy: I chose all the color palettes for each of the characters. I work closely with the people who design the sets, the set dressing. So that we make sure that nothing clashes with the curtains and all the furnishings. That’s one of the things I really really enjoy more than anything else.

Do your color choices have symbolic meaning?

Sandy: I don’t pick colors for symbolic reasons. I pick colors because they feel right and because I like them. I have a much more instinctive feel or intuitive reaction and response to color as opposed to, I’m doing this because it symbolizes this or symbolizes this.

Of course the green does represent envy. All the Wicked Stepmother’s colors, they’re cool colors. None of them are kind colors, or fresh colors, or youthful colors. Particularly though, I think they’re attractive colors because I wanted her to look like a fashion plate and attractive. They’re strong, but all of them are kind of a bit mean.

What was your favorite costume to make?

Sandy: They’re all really meaningful to me. It’s like they’re like my children, you don’t have a favorite. You like different ones at different times of the day. Of course I’m incredibly proud of the Ball Gown. You can’t not be because that’s the one that took the longest. But the Ball Gown took the longest. I spent the longest on it, developing it. And it might not have worked. But it came out exactly how I hoped. So I’m proud of that one. But there are others that I love. I like the men’s as much as the women’s. I like them all.

How long did it take you to create all the costumes?

Sandy: I was actually working on this for over a year, from start to finish. Till the very last day of the shoot. Actually one of the last things we shot was the wedding scene, and the wedding dress was actually the last thing I designed. That was really right towards the end of filming. So at least a year from start to finish.

Tell us about making the lizard footman’s costume.

Sandy: It was an interesting process. It did actually start with the costume, so I had to do a costume that looked like a footman, and how can I make that lizard-like? So I used the texture of the fabric. It was a fabric that we dyed first of all like the greens and the yellows. And over the top was a lace. A silver lace which gives that sort of scaly effect. Then that was put over the top and then it was painted again once the costume was made. It was like a tail coat but where the tail’s a little bit more exaggerated. Then the gloves were green and they were dyed with the yellow too. So it was actually all clothes.

Then that gave the visual effects department something to build on. Then they designed their lizard, but based on my costume in a way. I never knew which way it was to be anything, whether they would do a lizard that I would have to turn into a costume or vice-a-versa. But it started out as a costume. It was interesting, the first time I got something like that.

photo credit: Louise at MomStart.com

Can you tell us a little bit more about the Fairy Godmother’s costume?

Sandy: I had this mad idea that she actually literally twinkled, and all over. We got all the circuits made up by this lighting company. But it took a lot longer than I expected. Then we couldn’t really construct the costume until we had the lights done. So we were waiting for the lights to be finished. We knew the shape of the costume. I had the underpinnings done like the corset shape. We had all the fabric that needed to go on top of it. But that had to be worked in with the lights. So that costume actually ended up being really rather thrown together at the last minute. It looks like it’s been thrown together. In a way, I think it’s quite funny that it looks like it’s been thrown together. It looks like she’s made it, has thrown it together. And the lights don’t work properly, really.

It’s sort of like the magic doesn’t work that well the first time. Well actually it’s quite appropriate that it’s sort of lit up a bit. It’s like four or five or six circuits of lights all lit. She had to carry it, have a battery pack strapped underneath. Then each of those circuits had to be plugged into the battery pack to make it work. Then he would operate it from a computer turning the lights on and off. And in an ideal world we needed a lot longer to rehearse the scenes with the dialogue. We didn’t have the luxury of that.

When you were asked to design the costumes for Cinderella, did you already have something in mind for her ball gown?

Sandy: We screen tested lots of girls for Cinderella. So I knew, and they were all different shapes and sizes. It really makes a difference who the person is. As to what shape the dress is going to be. I knew it had to be voluminous. I knew it had to be big and had to be impressive, but without being heavy. Yet it helps knowing who the actress is and what shape you can make them. Or what shape they are.

What did Cinderella mean for you as a child? How did that translate into becoming what it is now?

Sandy: I must have known the story of Cinderella but I wasn’t a Cinderella obsessive. I wasn’t a kid who wanted to be a princess. But I loved dressing up. I mean, I love dressing up and dressed up in my mother’s wedding dress. I remember my mother’s wedding dress and a bride’s maid dress in my sister and I’s dressing up box. That’s what we dressed up in. So I loved all of that. I wanted to be a fashion model. I wanted to wear fashion outfits and not princess outfits. I wasn’t a fantasicist, actually.

I know that you worked with the actors on the costumes, do you ever have an actor or actress say, “I don’t want that.”?

Sandy: Yeah. Quite often they say “ I don’t think that suits me, I don’t think it’s right.” And you have to be very clever then in how you win them around. How you persuade them that you really think it’s the best idea. You have to get their confidence, that’s the first thing you have to do with an actress, get them to believe in you. Believe that you’re not trying to make them look stupid or ugly or horrible. That you are doing the best possible thing for them. It does happen. And sometimes if the really insist, then you can’t push it, because if you’re gonna make them wear something they don’t want to wear, then they’ll make it look horrible. Or they will be so uncomfortable and that’s not fair. But usually you try and persuade them.

What advice do you have for a young girl who wants to follow in your footsteps? That loves designing, loves costumes. What advice would you give them?

Sandy: I’d advise anybody who wants to do costumes, to learn how to sew. Learn how to make them. Because you’d be surprised, there’s an awful lot of costume designers who don’t know how to do it. I really don’t know how you can design and how you can talk to somebody else who’s making something, unless you know how to do it yourself. You have to start at the bottom and be a maker. Actually learn how to construct and sew. So you understand the construction and the engineering, which is what it is.

photo credit: Louise at MomStart.com

What do you hope that the audience will take away from the film, with your costumes?

Sandy: The whole role of a costume designer is not to make everybody look pretty. Although it’s nice if they do. Especially in something like Cinderella. It’s to make the characters completely believable. Make the characters come to life and help the actors create those characters. In doing so you hope that the audience go away with a really strong feeling of who all those characters are.

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I enjoyed getting an inside look at the process for the costume designs with Sandy. Here is our group photo with Cinderella Costume Designer Sandy Powell.

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