Kinds of Kindness designers had to take online 'deep dive' to source Willem Defoe's outfit
Willem Dafoe's 'Kinds of Kindness' costume came from a "really weird deep dive on Amazon".
The 68-year-old actor memorably wears a bizarre orange bikini in the third story of his new movie, and costume designer Jennifer Johnson admitted it took some extensive searching to find the right piece for the character.
She told Harper's Bazaar.com: "That is what I call an 'Amazon weirdo' —when you do a really weird deep dive on Amazon because the character requires something you can’t find on this planet.
"It’s not a Speedo, it’s questionable where it was made, and while I don’t like to promote shopping on Amazon and am very aware of the environmental impact of what we do, sometimes the character just needs that weird thing off Amazon and you go down this rabbit hole."
Jennifer insisted it is important to "method shop" and find pieces that are true to the characters.
Speaking of how Emma Stone's character wears a suit which is “the kind of Calvin Klein you buy at Macy’s” and shirts from Old Navy, she said: "Just like how there are method actors, I think it’s important to method shop.
"When you’re sourcing from the stores, it’s really important that it be true to that character.
"In the film, Emma’s character is in the United States and she comes from a very suburban, modest life and you see parts of her home life with her daughter and husband and they have this cute cottage.
"She has a good life—but she’s not somebody with a lot of money or high fashion. It would’ve been disingenuous if that suit was really expensive.
"We chose not to tailor the pants, and they didn’t fit perfectly, and that was all intentional… There’s depth of choice with everything. It’s not just, 'Oh, this is cool.' ”
The fashion expert admitted it was "very challenging" arranging costumes because of the movie's tryptich format, with each story featuring the same actors in very different roles.
She said: "It was very challenging. I had to make strong delineations because the same actors are in each story and we had a very tight [production] schedule.
"By making a set of rules that paid attention to colour and pattern that were special to each character really helped.
"Using the themes of power and influence and subversive control as different decision makers of why people wear what they did in each story."
