Dressing Anna Karenina
We cannot wait for the release of Anna Karenina - not least because what we've seen so far of Keira Knightley and her on-screen wardrobe is, frankly, incredible. Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline Durran (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) is the creative mind behind it. We grabbed some time with her to find out more
How did you start researching the designs for the film?
“At the first meeting I had with the director, Joe Wright, he told me that he didn’t really want to make it historically accurate, costume wise: he wanted to stylise it. The way he wanted to stylise it was to concentrate on the silhouette of each character and to take an 1870s silhouette, but simplify the surface details so that it really had the architectural simplicity of 50s couture. What I had to do immediately was look at the 1870s shape then strip away all the surface detail and just be left with that pure shape.”
Was there anything in particular that you used for inspiration?
“There were a few photographs from the 1870s that I found where the dresses had a simple quality that I liked and were quite clear on the structure. Because 1873, when we set the film, was the kind of transition point between the crinoline and the bustle. It wasn’t the narrow type bustle that you get later on, where from the front view of the woman it’s quite narrow over the hips and all of the extension is towards the back; it was in the middle and slightly bell-shaped, and it tipped forward a bit at the front but extended at the back, so it was growing into a bustle. There were a few photographs that showed that shape, and we decided pretty early on that that would be the shape of Anna Karenina, and that we would then keep it in a really simple form, and then take inspiration from the 50s, and add the 50s inspiration to the shape.”
The action centres around one theatre; did that have any impact on your work?
“The film is more than centred on the theatre in the sense that it all takes place in a theatre. So it did have a big impact really, because even though Joe said to me right from the beginning that he wanted it to be stylised, the fact that a few weeks into prep it transpired that the whole film was set in a theatrical setting and takes place on the stage and walking through sets and things like that in a very stylised way, meant that it really released you from the worry of making it look naturalistic and 1870s.”
“It really meant that you could experiment confidently in the stylisation because the audience would understand that we weren’t making it realistic. The whole thing was stylised – the rooms, the action, everything. And of course, we had Sidi Larbi choreographing a lot of the action, so the whole thing.
“It meant that you could be quite confident, because otherwise you end up worrying that people will just think that you’ve done the costumes badly and you’re not accurate, so then you can understand what period costumes should be.”
How did you work specifically with Keira on what she wore in the film?
“Because it’s my third film with Keira and also with the same director, Joe, we’ve become quite used to how we work together. Joe is very strong visually, so he sets the brief of how things will be. He sets the mood he wants the costumes to have and he sets specific details about costumes, so he’ll say, 'I want it to have a very low back', or 'I want it to have a very low neck', or 'I want it to be sleeveless'. Because he knows what he wants to shoot in the film and he knows how he’s going to shoot it before we start, he knows really what he wants the costumes to be like. So we have that straight away, and Keira and I both understand that that’s his vision, so my job is to try and make that vision concrete and make it real.”
“Keira is the same. When we come to do a fitting, Keira has become more and more aware of what suits her and what is a good costume, through her experience. She will participate in whether we think a hem is the right length, a sleeve length is right, how low the neck should be, what jewellery should go with it.
“She’s very collaborative and she’s very easy going but we are always trying to make the thing real for Joe. It’s his movie and his vision so that’s what we’re trying to make real.”
Were there any stand-out pieces, or anything that you were particularly proud of?
“I really liked the dresses where we referenced the 50s most strongly, so that you get the combination of the really strong 50s element and the 1870s silhouette. So I like it when the two things are combined, because I’m conscious that a lot of people watching a period drama like Anna Karenina won’t really be conscious of what we’re doing. They may think the costumes look a bit different to normal but they won’t really know why.”
“So I really laid on the 50s referencing, just to try and make it really apparent to even the untutored eye. The costumes I’m most pleased with are when those two elements are most strongly there. They’re in contrast to each other but they’re together in a costume, so I like that.”
What did you make of the Russian themes coming through on the autumn/winter 2012 catwalks?
“It’s an absolute parallel movement, because when we made Anna Karenina last year, that wasn’t on the catwalk, and neither were the people who were designing the clothes for this autumn/winter thinking about Anna Karenina. It’s an absolute coming together of two things at the same time.”
“It’s very hard to understand how these things happen, but I am very conscious of the fact that whenever you’re designing a costume or whenever you’re thinking about fashion, that you are always moving on with fashion, however much you think you aren’t. Even if you try to do the most pure period costumes that you ever could, that will date along with the passage of time. You’ll look back on it and think, ‘that looks really 80s’, even though you at the time were trying to make the purest thing you could. Even if you resist, you are, your eye is just trained into those shapes that are current, that look attractive now.”
Anna Karenina is released at cinemas in the UK on 6 September 2012.
