The POOR THINGS costume exhibit at ASU FIDM includes Holly Waddington’s exquisite designs, with pieces worn by Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and Christopher Abbott.
Costume designer Holly Waddington (The Great, Lady Macbeth) was introduced to Lanthimos by Tony McNamara. Waddington loved the idea of the world being experienced by someone new and untethered to societal norms. ‘We live in a very mad world and this story is a reminder that it is constructed
by us, we’ve got no one to blame for it, but ourselves,’ Waddington explains further.
As Bella begins to develop and goes out into society, her costumes reflect her social and sexual awakening. ‘The color palette and the materials that Holly used were all deeply thought through and inspired by what Bella is going through and how she’s evolving,’ explains Stone. The only time Bella wears
a corset in the film is when she returns to Alfie Blessington and wears a dress from her previous life as Victoria Blessington.
At the beginning of the film, Bella is a prisoner in the house and wears very Victorian looking blouses, but never a complete outfit. Waddington liked the idea that Bella, like a lot of children, would have been dressed in the morning, but lost most of their clothes by lunchtime.
Bella’s eyes are opened to the monstrous part of society when Harry takes her to Alexandria, and she sees the impoverished slum dwellers. For this costume, Waddington dressed Bella in her most formal outfit, with many people on the ship wearing spotless creams and whites. This is the only time we see Bella
as a representative of her social class and as an upper-class woman.
When it came to designing the Parisian brothel, Waddington had one clear idea of what she didn’t want it to look like. ‘The images of period dramas are very consistent. If you’ve grown up in England watching the BBC on a Sunday night, you’ve seen a lot of 18th and 19th -century brothel women,’ Waddington explains. ‘It’s a great look, but we wanted to do something a little different.’
For these unique costumes, Waddington was grateful that Stone was game to experiment along with her wild designs. Bella’s wedding dress became one of Stone’s favourite costumes in her career. ‘I almost cried when I put it on,’ Stone recalls. ‘It was exquisite. Sheer and delicate, but also incredibly strong.
A bit like how I see the nature of sex as vulnerability and confidence blended in tandem, that is what the dress symbolized to me. It’s an incredibly impactful statement of a dress.’
[Photo Credit: Todd Williamson, Laura Ahmed]
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