Director Ti West’s breathtaking horror trilogy reaches its bloody and spectacular conclusion in the new film MaXXXine.Emphasis attractive—this film is set in the dark, bleak world of 1980s Hollywood, where over-the-top makeup, acid-washed jeans, and big hair are all the rage.
We first fell in love with Maxine (Mia Goth) in 2022 X, a moment of respect Texas Chainsaw Massacre Set in the 1970s and delving into the crazy history of the same year pearlIt’s set in Texas, 1918. Now, we follow his eventual quest for superstardom, and the clothes themselves play a major role in this film, arguably more so than the previous two films.
Bazaar We sat down with costume designer Marie-An Ceo to learn how to bring Maxine to life, portray a different side of 1980s fashion, and how to run a costume department with fake blood flying everywhere.
This is the third film in a trilogy, but the first film in the trilogy that you designed the costumes for. How? MaXXXine be interested X And pearl?
Each film has its own unique look, which I believe is one of the reasons why these films are so successful. Artistically, each one has its own unique feel. Ours has a very stylized 1980s genre of roadhouse and slasher films. The films have that whole 1980s feel of suspense, and we really played to that. The production design, the lighting, the costumes—everything really captured that.
Are there any Easter Egg references to the previous two films?
This is a personal thing, but we had this “Oui” T-shirt. I bought it secondhand when I was a kid, and I wore it everywhere. And apparently one day my dad said, [who] He was very conservative, he saw me with that T-shirt on my 10-speed bike and almost had a heart attack—Yes It was a gentlemen’s magazine that came out of Paris in the 70s and 80s. And “Oui Oui Marie” is a song Xso in a way, the “Oui” t-shirt that we used in this movie, Xand also my naughty t-shirt that I shouldn’t have worn.
Also, Maxine’s denim outfit. Ti made it very clear that she wanted something that referenced her overalls [in X]. We did it with a two-piece that looked like a jumpsuit. It’s the ’80s version of a jumpsuit. It’s our nod to that—but acid-wash denim.
Acid-washed denim! The 1980s were a visually rich time period.
I was living in the 1980s, but I would say that there were a lot of different styles emerging at the same time: Punk was around, disco was still kind of emerging, we were getting into the New Romantic style, guys were wearing glamorous makeup in clubs, there was a lot of different clubbing going on… and instead of going into this Valley girl style in the ’80s… [style]We really wanted to tap into the club scene. We didn’t want it to be just “big shoulders 80s”, but there’s a little bit of that in there. Maxine is tough, but she’s more. She’s part blonde, part Flash dance. Even though we are in the mid-80s, it is now coming out of the 70s.
Did you use a lot of vintage pieces for this film, or did you make your own costumes, or both?
For Maxine’s character, we needed a lot of multiples, along with all the stunts, but we did pretty much all of her stuff. We did the acid-wash jeans, most of her dresses; we were inspired by the glamour of the 1930s for the scene at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and Scarface. We made 90 percent of the clothes Maxine wears.
I guess it’s hard to use vintage elements in this type of film; all that stunt work and fake blood.
In fact, we did something that would put most costume designers to shame, we did a few really bad ones. There were some really great original ’80s pieces like Michelle Monaghan’s great ’80s leather jacket and Sergio Valente jeans, so when it came to stunts, we did a few bad ones. Because sometimes it’s really hard to fake vintage when it’s this good. When it comes to backgrounds and crowd scenes, it’s pretty much all original pieces from the ’80s.
You are no stranger to the slasher genre, you have worked on series such as: Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, And A Nightmare on Elm Street. How did this project compare to other horror films you’ve worked on before?
It’s funny, because I don’t actively seek it out. I started making these movies with Michael Bay and that’s how I got started. I grew up in a small town in Florida with a movie theater and I remember going to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacreand I would cover my face 90 percent of the time—but being in a movie theater with people screaming was quite exciting for me. I don’t like watching people get killed, but I like what those movies can do to the audience. I love the movies of that era. In that case, I would say Ti did a very good job pearl And X I thought, This guy has something special. When this came along, I said, “I’ll do it.” kill “BT.”
Is it hard to plan a costume when there is so much blood?
With MaXXXine I was so obsessed with the period pieces we found, and we were going on strike while we were shooting, so it was a much quicker preparation than we would normally do. I lived a dangerous life! There’s usually a dozen or so things there. MaXXXineWe would have the original and then a few really googly eyes. The leather pants from the ’80s were so great that we couldn’t change them – we tried to make other pants that required stunts, but none of them fit as well as the original pants. We wore multiple other pants, but it was one of those cases where we really fell in love with the originals. One thing that was different about this movie was that we did it very old-school. We kept using some of the same gory stuff [take after take] and it happened just in time. It was like an old movie from the ’80s—”Just wipe the blood off, it’s okay!”
Did your actors try to steal anything from the set?
This time, interestingly enough, people were very nice and asked for their stuff! It happens a lot. One of them is this T-shirt that we put on Moses Sumney. People used to write a lot on T-shirts in the 80s, and one of his options was this T-shirt where he had written a poem on it and wore it backwards. I don’t know what happened to Moses’ poetry T-shirt!
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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