my favorite memory of last night in soho was matt thomason and i all doing the
dance sequence that was so much fun i'm wearing this insane pink dress
which is quite amazing because it's made out of flowing chiffon but it was beautiful and it
made me feel classy as an actor it's all in your head until you put on your costume it
helps you believe it helps you leave the outside world behind it's magical
hi focus fans welcome to the first ever episode of dressed a new series taking a deep dive into
the costumes of some of our favorite focused films in today's episode we'll be journeying
back to a whole other era as we highlight some of the costumes from edgar wright's film last night
in soho starring thomas and mackenzie and anna taylor joy last night in soho follows an aspiring
fashion designer eloise who possesses a strange ability to transport herself back to the 1960s
which encounters sandy a captivating up-and-coming singer but the bright lights and glamour aren't
all they appear to be as eloise's world starts to splinter into something dark and disturbing
where are you going
last night in soho explores two very different eras in fashion all set in the soho district
of london from the contemporary day looks of young fashion students to the colorful
show-stopping designs of the swinging 60s and i actually have the costumes right behind me
demonstration i'm gonna highlight this and i know you're all looking at me saying joe
that's not a costume that's a hoodie you're wrong this is a costume because a costume
tells a story and the first time we see eloise walking in london in the 60s she's wearing this
hoodie but someone at the ball slides it off her shoulders like it was a feathered cape
that really showed the contrast between the two eras and also the two characters
wow it really suits you yeah it does doesn't it and of course i'm not going to talk about the
60s or modern day if we can't talk about this white trench coat mac whatever you want to call
it but everything about this is so emblematic of today end of the 60s the white the patent
leather the structure inspired by a lot of the 60s designers like paco rabanne and pierre carden
but also incredibly modern in the way that many kids would be able to wear this today
yes i just like the old songs better than the stuff today music was better yeah but of course
we are not talking about all these costumes and we don't talk about this particular dress the very
first time we see anya taylor joy cascade down the stairs she's wearing this wisp of a dress that is
beautiful and coral and chiffon that floats behind her almost like a dream and it looks so simple but
it's incredibly well designed if you look at it there's tiny pin tucks around the neck the
silver beading detail even a tiny bow all true to the era every little tuck and detail that is done
around this neckline is what gave it its movement and the movement is what became that character
i would love to know the thought process behind this dress and all of the designs why don't we
get the costume designer odile dicks moreau on the phone this is just a taste of things to come
hey odile thank you for joining me we have been going through the costumes from the film they are
incredible thank you thank you nice to meet you joe we opened the film on contemporary day london
now i know a lot of people think oh contemporary clothes how hard can that be but it's actually
harder to design contemporary clothes than it is to do period is that not true yes absolutely when
you see a good contemporary film onboard is full of admiration i had a very good young assistant
who was just out of college she pretended i was her aunt and we went into the art colleges nice
to sit there we would literally look at what they were wearing and see the variety of looks and then
we would go out and shop and buy combination closing and put some looks together to then
show edgar you've got to believe that she is this young fashion student so we did decide that she
should be quite neutrally coloured when she dreamt herself back into the 60s but when she went to
fashion school i had to contrast her with the four other girls yeah she literally made the outfit
she's wearing how amazing all of us turn up on our sunday best and she's here rocking her own design
a big part of the movie is the transition from contemporary day to the swinging 60s which was
such an emblematic era in terms of fashion i actually thought it was incredibly interesting
the way that you use colors to tell the story of the two different eras edgar's not afraid
of color which was exciting so i looked at a lot of bridget dough pictures a lot of julie christie
a lot of films or the period you know that edgar wanted us to look at i think we were very
much trying to get color into the scenes without distracting from anias and obviously nobody else
was allowed to wear peach the tent dress i really agonized over because i was very worried about how
much chiffon i would need to do i didn't want to have too little but not too much to do that dress
is not as easy as you think when she went on the dance floor and did what she did with her
i just thought you're my dream you made the dress work and she was always up for that always making
the clothes work wonderfully collaborative in that sense once you gave her the costume
she went yeah i can do this i want to be your new headline act where have you played before
nowhere it starts at the cafe de paris me i want to ask you about the white mac code how did you
land on this white mac in particular it was out there it wasn't something just on pierre calderon
actually normal girls were wearing these macs you could have lots of different colors
and it was just deciding on the white which was quite a brave decision on everybody's part
and i think it was very much a collaborative decision everything was so well made back then
i don't want to forget about the guys because men's fashion in this particular movie is as
important as the ladies matt's costumes how did his suits really evolve throughout the movie he
was based really of a combination of lawrence harvey and albert finney in the 60s so it was
a combination of quite a sophisticated guy and a much rawr guy you quite like the idea of the
pinstripe suit which i thought was really great i found this great checked fabric and i was thought
cool how bold can i get that to be and then we did the mo hair at the end we used bass more on the
pop stars at the time to get that progression from 65 to 68 and then the coat story and how much
his coat would reflect the character of terence stamp you know they would have the similar shapes
i hear you're quite the ladies man what how dare you still am you never lose it we actually have
two of my favorite favorite looks in the film the newspaper couture gown that opened the movie
and the red dress that we see on anya taylor joy how did you conceive that newspaper gown
edgar wrote her newspaper dress so that was it was edgar's idea i had a fantastic maker
on board once we went for a sort of an idea and they'd get to go with it she created some little
maquettes once he chose the the style he liked we then made it for thompson so she could move in it
and see how it worked and really visualize it and then he went yeah i'm very happy with that shape
that was interesting to find out the newspaper is actually a very good material to make a dress
out of what did you do to get that red dress how important was the color and the design
in implementing what that particular look was for annie's character it's all about looking
really i think a lot of designers just looking and absorbing things and i found that pattern and
i thought wow i think that says it and we copied the original pattern pretty close to it and so i
was always thinking of the overall picture when she has the black lace dress when she's singing
downtown that was very much another pinch from julie christie that she was still looking quite
elegant quite chic and then suddenly she has to be much more flamboyant and the red was in
a way perfect for the setup in that scene i'm in love with the fabric of the spread dress i
discovered it it's kind of a silk and that one just entirely did the trick for me odile
thank you so much i know you're crazy busy but uh i love hearing it straight from the source
thank you thank you very much i've really enjoyed speaking to you
this is why i appreciate costume design you can tell right away
these two gowns are their own characters
a great way to set the tone for this movie to have their modern day character eloise romping around
in a custom-made couture newspaper dress and if you really look at the details of this there is
pleating everywhere there's a bustier detail here that is actually sewn with pin tucking we've got
a waist here a proper waist on a newspaper gown that is all gathered into a bustle
and then a train newspaper dresses are back in style and then you have this a flaming red
hot little dress they actually had to dye every single one of these bright colored
dresses and if you look at this it doesn't even actually look dyed the color is so spot on
it is so perfect and the dress may look so simple but i call this actually a hello goodbye dress
it has a lot to do with this giant bow detail on the back and of course this was an old nina
richie pattern odile found online from the 60s that they cut into this dress
i love these dresses and i think this is the perfect example of how you can take something
in a movie make it about the costume but make it also really about the character
well thank you for joining me today on this episode of dress and i hope
you learned a little something about costumes and love them as much as i do
with so many more movies to come there'll be so many more stories to tell until next time
you