How the costume designers for 'The Crow' invented a modern gothic antihero
It’s often said that not all heroes wear capes, but what do antiheroes wear? And we’re not asking about the Taylor Swift variety. In the new reimagining of The Crow, out 23 August, Bill Skarsgård offers up his take on the story’s lead role of Eric, a musician brought back from the dead to exact vengeance after the murder of his lover, Shelly, played here by the real-life singer-songwriter FKA Twigs. Perhaps even more so than the original hit 1994 film, based on James O’Barr’s indie comic book, it’s a gory tale complete with fountains of blood, an abundance of goth eyeliner, and more than a few moments sure to make audiences wince – in all the best ways. Superman or The Avengers, this is not.
Skarsgård, no stranger to tortured and terrifying characters, is perfect for the role. This is the man who played Pennywise in It, and who will take his turn as the vampiric Count Orlok in the forthcoming Robert Eggers take on Nosferatu. Here, Skarsgård’s costumes speak to a different type of hero, not often reflected in cinema: the modern gothic antihero.
The pieces he inhabits aren’t brightly coloured spandex leotards or pristine robotic suits of armour. His clothes are beat up, imbued with subtle detailing, as if they have been — like the character Eric himself — to hell and back. We caught up with the costume design duo Kurt and Bart (of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Ghost in the Shell, and Foundation fame) for an exclusive look at how they brought this dark, twisted fantasy to life.
I always like to start interviews like this one with a question about source material. Obviously, there were the original Crow films, which originated from the comic book. To what extent did you want to reference, or not reference, the material that came before?
Kurt: I think we were both familiar with the original, for sure. We did look at the graphic novel, and I think Rupert [Sanders], the director, wanted to reimagine the story for a modern audience. The original is very heavy on the goth imagery so, with Rupert, we decided to bring it up to date and modernise it … . We wanted to set it in today’s day, to appeal to young people today. It wasn’t meant to be a period piece or a '90s goth thing. The way Twigs and Bill are dressed as Eric and Shelly [is] kind of based on contemporary style and fashion.
Bart: But there is a nod to the '80s in all of it. I think '80s and '90s culture is so infiltrated into fashion that it’s all become very homogenised. There are elements in all the costumes that hark back to the '80s. Eric’s Crow trousers are bondage trousers that reference [Vivienne] Westwood. He’s wearing classic Vans. And [Twigs] is wearing what girls used to wear in the clubs: crinolines, combat boots, ripped-up T-shirts. All the stuff we loved about street fashion, we tried to infiltrate into the design.
Speaking of FKA Twigs: she is a creative person who is known for having a very singular sense of style. What kind of actress is she like to collaborate with?
Kurt: This is a collaborator. She has been creative for so long, and not just as a musical artist, but as a dancer and performer. She really appreciates collaboration. I think initially, we were thinking, where can we go with her that she hasn’t been before? Twigs has covered so much in her territory as an artist and musician, so we wanted to make it feel unique to this story. In a way, we tried to peel it back a little bit, and she was smart and wanted it to be a look that was relatable, that any girl could go out and cut up a T-shirt and put on.
Tell me about where you sourced her clothes. Did you look to vintage, did you work with brands, or did you build everything?
Kurt: She had only two or three changes, and we built almost everything. Her stacked combat boots were actually hers, which was cool. She feels comfortable in them, so they fit and felt good for showing off her outfit: her beat-up fur coat in the beginning, the crinoline, and these bloomer shorts that were made by amazing London-based designer Sinéad O’Dwyer.
Bart: Twigs knows a lot of people and has this awareness of what’s going on in the creative world. We went to a fashion market with her in London.
You went shopping with FKA Twigs?
Kurt: We went to do a fitting with her in London, and she brought us to this guy who runs a shop called Fantastic Toiles, a group of young designers who all kind of get together and do this pop-up market. All these kids are super creative and young — it reminded me of the '80s. We were doing out fitting with Twigs, and that pop-up was happening at the same time, so we ended up going with her. It was exciting. We moved to New York in 1986 to become designers and did it for a couple years, and that same kind of crazy spirit I remember having when I was young, it was fun to see these kids still doing that.
This film has a lot of underwater scenes, a lot of blood and guts, and a lot of stunts. Did that impact how many multiples of everything you needed to build?
Bart: We took this approach with Eric’s costumes that they had this “one-of-a-kind piece you find in the trash” aesthetic, but we did need a lot of multiples. You need multiples for the underwater double, and they’re different shapes and sizes. So when we did things like building Shelly’s coat out of old parachute silk, we needed to find one big enough so we could sew multiple coats [from it]. Bill’s coat gets shot up completely and covered with blood. I think in all we had 10 of those coats. And the coat had a lot of pieces, so building it was complicated.
Are there any tiny details that really interject a lot of character into the clothing, maybe details that audiences might not even notice?
Kurt: I feel like we always try to interject something, even if it’s for our own sake, but Bill’s coat that he wears is actually inside out. When he and Shelly go to that apartment when they escape rehab, he puts on this coat and she pulls it off him, and it comes off inside out, and they throw it on the ground. So after he returns to the apartment when Shelly is dead, he puts it on and it’s inside out. There’s a tag on the front. So all those details are kind of there.
Bart: It’s funny, because we didn’t know if audiences would really register that. But Bill was the one to point it out: he’s going back to the place where they fell in love, and [therefore that jacket] is really imbued with their love. The idea came from us, but he articulated it so well.
Kurt: Something else special about this movie is the supporting character Marion, played by Laura Birn. So much about this film was exploring what people were going to wear when they’re dressed to die. And for Laura, we collaborated with this amazing couture designer, Yiqin Ying, and it was just perfect.
Were there any pieces your actors tried to steal?
Kurt: I don’t think so. Most times, actors are so tired of being in the costume that when they’re done, they probably don’t want to see it again.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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