“You Have To Make Style Out Of What You Have”: Catherine Martin Talks ‘The Get Down’ And 1970s Fashion
Baz Luhrmann’s wife deserves a huge amount of recognition for her costume design and production work [Photo: Getty]
Catherine Martin is one of those women you can’t help but be in awe of. She’s the proud owner of four Oscars, three BAFTAs and a dazzling array of other awards - a surefire sign of the 51-year-old’s excellence in the world of costume and production design.
Catherine’s worked alongside her husband, director Baz Luhrmann, for nearly 30 years, taking on larger-than-life film projects that most costume designers would balk at.
She tackled 1900s bohemia in Paris for ‘Moulin Rouge’, gave F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel a glitzy update in the reprise of ‘The Great Gatsby’ and sat with a village elder to work out if socks were worn with riding boots in the nineteenth century for ‘Australia’.
Catherine and Baz have worked together for nearly 30 years, on a number of award-winning films including ‘The Great Gatsby’ [Photo: Getty]
Catherine’s most recent project is slightly different – but by no means less ambitious. For the first time, the husband and wife duo have taken on the small screen and transported viewers to the Big Apple, telling the saga of how a battered city at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to a new art form: hip hop.
Gone are the flapper dresses, petticoats and ballgowns: ‘The Get Down’ pays homage to flares, disco dresses and the beginnings of street style.
So, how did it all come together and what was Catherine’s creative process? We sat down with the Aussie native to find out.
So much creativity, so little means. Our story emerges from the contrast between the shiny sophistication of disco and the emerging music art form of hip hop. The movement was bursting forth. Yet, it was also a dangerous, and in some ways, broken place in 1977. My initial question was a simple one: How did these profound, creative, new gestures come out of this place, this youth and this geography?
It’s not my story to tell. But it’s also the first show I’ve done set in a period that I actually lived through. I was in Times Square when I was 10 with my dad and I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. I had no idea that it was seedy or horrible. I always remember that energy of New York. The steam coming out of the subway grates and the yellow taxis, so it was connecting also with all of those memories that I had when I was a child.
The women in ‘The Get Down’ are strong, feisty and know their own minds - just like the men [Photo: The Get Down]
Female empowerment is key. [Baz] doesn’t categorise people as men or women. And I think part of what makes the story interesting is that there are strong female characters that work against stereotypes. Our real baddy is a woman, which is great because you never see that, and she is, to quote the hip hop phrase, a badass.
Within black culture in the United States certainly looking good has always been important within that community, whether it came out of the idea of Sunday Best and women getting ready to go to church in incredibly well-thought-out-outfits. It’s very much about that pride in your appearance and displaying the pride in yourself by dressing well and not being afraid of your own sexuality. You see all of the girls really embracing who they are. They have a big journey in the show and we wanted to embrace that strength, that sexuality.
The show’s star style player is a pair of red Pumas. In 1977, there were three pairs of sneakers that were considered acceptable: Converse, the classic American sports shoe, Pro Keds, which are about to be relaunched in the States, and the Puma. You were looked down on if you didn’t have one of these three styles - you were a loser.
The Puma was the top of the top and there were certain colours that were more difficult to get. Baz picked red because it’s so iconic and looks so good on screen.
The programme includes a visually spectacular mix of street style ensembles and iconic 70s disco get-ups [Photo: The Get Down]
Developing style out of a very limited number of choices. If you don’t have many resources, you have to make style out of what you have at your disposal. Sneakers are the quintessential shoe of a teenager – they’re inexpensive. How do you make style out of really a limited palate? You have trousers, a T-shirt and sneakers. The style was created out of a really limited palatte – trousers, a T-shirt and sneakers – but you would match everything. You would wear the same colour all over because it doesn’t cost money to match everything. You would also attempt to wear something new.
Fashion keeps evolving. For every devolution there’s a revolution. The next generation will find their own way of speaking about fashion, about decorating yourself, about saying who you are, about connecting yourself to whatever tribe in society you want to connect yourself to. I think that the thing that has changed, but it’s a change that has been happening since the late 19th century, that more and more people have access to style. And that might be good, bad or different, but it means that everyone can create their own look. You don’t have to have those divisions anymore. You can be a fashion star on virtually nothing.
Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Get Down’ will be available to view on Netflix from August 12.
“I’m Much More Confident Now I’m Older”: Carol Voderman On Life Over 50
