“Once we got into it and they saw what I was doing with the fabrics and the lighting they were really excited,” she continues. “it was a great turnaround for me as a designer working with fellow artisans.” Everything then was sewn by hand, so the finishing was tantamount, and Atwood found herself working with fellow artists and designers on a whole new level.
Next was 2002’s Chicago—and while she was inspired by the dynamic photography of Man Ray, she didn’t have much budget to work with. Dance scenes were shot across 16 hour days in one costume—again, no multiples. “You just stood on the side, poised with a needle and thread, waiting for something to blow up on you,” she remembers.
2004 was Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Atwood promised herself to create textiles. Jim Carey’s suit, for example, is made of strips of wool cut with metal base behind it to create a strange iridescent texture. Memoirs of a Geisha, in 2005, was a “terrifying prospect.“ “You’re honoring a culture…it was important for me to know what was real,” says Atwood. While the actors were tall and willowy, original Geisha clothing was made for smaller women. She went to an art exhibition in Tokyo of illustrations of Geishas that totally inspired her to play with the proportions. “It set me free,” she says.
Nine, starring Nicole Kidman, reminds Atwood of a fashion era she loves most. “Early ’60s, high Italian fashion is one of my favorite periods,” she says. “It’s just so classically elegant, and it’s throwaway at the same time. It isn’t as stuffy as the Americans were…you believe people actually wore it.” It helped that the cast dripped in Chopard jewelry too.
One of her most special collaborations was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, pushing the ideas of a beloved character with costume and new technology. Years later, Netflix’s Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega, continued that. For the live-action Little Mermaid, Atwood worked with a digital artist to design each of the sisters’s tails. Then, on Masters of Air, she got even more into the manufacturing side of things. And it was working with Paul Thomas Anderson on One Battle After Another that was “like no other.” Deep, detailed, a fluid process that brought everything to life—exactly how Atwood likes to work.
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