After reading the script for Emerald Fennell’s revenge thriller, “Promising young woman,” costume designer Nancy Steiner envisioned a “disheveled” or, more kindly, “less than tidy” protagonist.
After all, Cassie – the main character in the film played by Carey Mulligan – is depressed. The 30-year-old girl who dropped out of medical school never recovered from a mysterious traumatic event that inspired her to fill her nights by demanding revenge on toxic men. Still, in her daily life, Cassie is dressed from head to toe in bubble gum and flowers, with her long blond hair often pulled back in a braid and decorated with ribbons. This is all deliberate.
“Emerald really wanted Cassie to dress like she was a carefree girl. You would never know that she is depressed, ”says Steiner, whose resume includes“ Lost in Translation ”,“ Little Miss Sunshine ”and“ The Virgin Suicides ”. “I realized that it’s just another one of her outfits that she wears to hide who she really is.”
Her feminine exterior, which Steiner refers to as a “sweet all-American girl,” is part of Cassie’s chameleon tendency to hide in plain sight. Her everyday clothes can be full of bold prints, bright tones and multicolored manicures, but rest assured, she is not trying to stand out.
“I went back to the 60s,” says Steiner. “I had pictures of Brigitte Bardot on my mood board – a lot of cute blondes.”
As a costume designer, she sees her work as “telling the story without shouting”. But, she says with a wink of knowledge for the shocking end of the film, “sometimes you need to scream”.
“Promising Young Woman” opened in theaters on Christmas Day and was released on demand last week. Here, Steiner details the main clothes worn by Mulligan in the film.
Drunk Business
Cassie in what the team calls a “business bar”.
Courtesy of Focus Features
Throughout the film, Cassie frequents several clubs and bars to attract her prey. Behind the scenes, the team gave each drinker its own nickname to differentiate the vibrations. “Promising young woman” opens with Cassie at the “business bar”, a traditional pub where men meet after work. As in her everyday life, Cassie dresses to fit. (In the “trendy bar”, she wears feathered hair extensions.)
Steiner chose a traditional outfit to keep Cassie in focus. Meanwhile, a montage of sweaty men wearing khakis and ill-fitting dress shirts plays vibrant music.
“We were trying to show how disgusting it can be to watch men from a woman’s point of view,” said Steiner. “You know, like, ‘Ew!'”
The maiden
“There’s a ‘Stepford Wife’ kind of thing about that,” Steiner says of Cassie’s outfit.
Merie Weismiller Wallace; SMPSP
When she is not harassing bad men, Cassie works as a barista. At the cafe, she reconnects with a former medical school colleague Ryan (Bo Burnham). After funny and awkward games, the two start dating. One of Steiner’s favorite scenes takes place at a meeting, where Cassie and Ryan scour the aisles of a convenience store using snacks as karaoke props to sing Paris Hilton’s pop anthem, “Stars Are Blind”. She is wearing a hot pink cardigan, a bright floral top and blush jeans.
“There’s a ‘Stepford Wife’ kind of thing about that,” Steiner says about Cassie’s date night attire. “She wears nice clothes and spends the day. Nobody asks her about her, because she just integrates perfectly. “
Impaired Eurovision
Cassie in what the team called the “Eurotrash” bar.
Merie Weismiller Wallace / Focus
Later, in what the team dubbed the “Eurotrash bar”, Cassie dresses in a tight, sparkling sequin mini dress, complemented with shabby hair extensions, high heels and silver hoop earrings. Cassie leaves to go home with her next pawn. But not before she bumps Ryan awkwardly while she’s wrapped around another man, who’s wearing a felt hat.
“She goes to these places thinking that she will not be recognized. I don’t know why Bo’s character was going to that bar ”, posits Steiner. “I never understood that. It is not himself. That was disturbing. “
Nurse Ratched
Costume designers for “Promising Young Woman” wanted Cassie’s nurse outfit to be “sexy”, but not overdone.
The film reaches its climax when Cassie makes a surprise visit to the bachelor party of the man responsible for her trauma. A reference to her medical school days, Cassie arrives at a remote cabin in the woods wearing a sexy nurse costume that is complete with a multicolored wig and blood red lipstick. Steiner says he couldn’t find the perfect outfit, so he ended up making his own.
“We wanted something that was not overly exaggerated, but still sexy and provocative,” says Steiner. “It was fun to design because it was so different from Carey and Cassie.”