Pop Culture Confidential

Episode 21: Creating the Costumes of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Kurt and Bart

This weeks guests have created some of the most iconic looks for superstars like Britney Spears, Pink, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, and Marilyn Manson. They are behind the wonderful costumes in the Oscar winning film Dallas Buyers Club, and most recently they designed the costumes for Mockingjay Pt 1 & 2 of the Hunger Games franchise. Kurt Swanson and Bart Mueller, who make up the New York-based costume design team Kurt & Bart, created meticulously detailed looks for Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson and the rest of the cast, along with over 10,000 extras. Yes, you read that correctly - 10,000 extras! Unlike the previous Hunger Games films, Mockingjay Part 1 & 2 take place mainly in District 13 as Katniss leads the revolution against the Capitol. The costumes Kurt & Bart designed reflect the shift for each character as they take on new roles and the limitations of wartime. The result is both restrained in color and materials, but no less visually stunning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 31m
Broadcast on:: 20 Nov 2015
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now, Kurt and Bart, award-winning costume designers and stylists, take on the amazing costumes on their second film in the Hunger Games series, The New Blockbuster, Mocking J Part 2. This is Pop Culture Confidential. Hi, I'm Christina Yarlink-Biro. Thank you for listening. Kurt Swanson and Bart Mueller, simply known as Kurt and Bart, started working together in the '80s and moved to New York, where music in the club scene became a major influence on their design aesthetic. They soon started designing for some of the most epic music acts, David Bowie, Courtney Love, Pink, to name a few. And they're behind many of Britney Spears' most iconic music video styles, like Slave for You and Toxic. Their previous film credits include, for example, Stoker with Nicole Kidman and Dallas Buyers Club, for which they were nominated for Costume Designers Guild Award. Now, Kurt and Bart have designed the meticulously detailed costumes for parts 1 and 2 of the Hunger Games, Mocking J. We all have one enemy, and that's President Snow. He corrupts everyone and everything. He turns the best of us against each other. Stop. Killing for him. Tonight, turn your weapons to the Capitol. Turn your weapons to snow. During the interview, you can follow along and see the costumes we're talking about. On the website, popcultureconfidential.com, or on the ACAST player. Here you can see, among other designs, their real masterpiece, the Mocking J itself, worn by Jennifer Lawrence. Kurt and Bart, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks. This is Kurt, by the way, and this is Bart. It seems like music's been a major part of your work. How would music and fashion interact, aesthetically? Well, this kind of goes back to having met in the 80s, and I love that time period growing up. You got the tail end of disco, you were holding up to have all the fantastic disco acts, and then you also had the classic rock of the 70s at the age that we were then, but then you had all the emergence of punk and new wave and all the great things that were coming out of both Europe and the US. People were just expressing themselves in a completely different way, but also a really visual way, and I think that's something that we got into into music, and fashion have always been good friends. What were some of the things you'd worked on in the 80s? The 80s was a weird time. I mean, I think we were trying to find our way. We started a clothing line in Denver. We moved to New York with that clothing line, and did it for a short time, and sold at places like Patricia Fields, early store on 8th Street, and this store 109 St. Marks. But I think it's weird, I think, going out to nightclubs and dressing up every night and being basically club kids through the 80s was probably schooling for us in a lot of ways. I feel like that still influences our work today, and again, I think it's really tied to music. There were like ID Magazine and Face, and all those were really kind of a Bible for us, and that was really amazing. It was very pre-internet, and you kind of had to search out the things you were interested in and research them and research people on the street, and what other people were wearing out at night. I think the 80s have played a big part in this. What was the project you did with David Bowie? Bowie was for MTV. MTV, one year, did a huge campaign for MTV when it was at the Lincoln Center in New York. It was this big operatic theme, and we did all these people like Eminem and Bowie and Janet Jackson and Brittany, and all these people kind of as classic opera characters, and that's actually what we did Bowie for. That's true. That's true. It is the first time we worked with Brittany, and we kind of clicked with her, and that kind of led to our five years with her. Yeah, we dressed Brittany as a violetta. Yeah. It was kind of hilarious, because she was like such a kid then. I mean, I think we were like eating cheetos. I was like, "Don't get cheetos on your violetta dress." That was kind of the start of that, but it was a great job, because we really got to work with some really iconic people, and Bowie was one of them, and he was so lovely, and we would be talking with him, and then you'd suddenly realize, "Oh, my God, I'm talking to Ziggy Stardust." But he was really a pleasure to work with, and he was really open and very smart. How was he style? He was, now you're really testing with him. I think he was Mathisto, but I don't know which opera it was from, but we got him, we had made him this kind of insane frock coat, and we had found all these falling apart lace shirt fronts, and I remember we cut a pair of pointed beetle boots apart and made them into hand-beated little Louis Quette Torres shoes, but he was great, he was great. I have to find the pictures, I'm so curious to see it now, everything sounds great. Back to Brittany, one of the memorable things you've done for her is slave for you. Which one of you had the idea of the live snake she had to carry around? That's one of my, the slave video and her performance at MTV are probably one of our favorite things we did with her. She was just so at the top of her game at that point, and it's weird for as long as we worked with her, you know, it really took, I think it really took us a while to realize who she was in the whole spectrum of the world, you know, to me she was this sweet, sweet little girl from Louisiana, and she was really kind of like a little sister in a way of us, always really appreciative for what we were doing with her, and really excited about clothes, but then suddenly you just started to realize the level of fame that she was at, you know, and you would start being in these situations with her that were actually, you know, sometimes scary, and you know, just to see that kind of fame thrust on someone so young, it was really interesting to be a part of that, and she was, it was an amazing ride with her. We had a really great time. How could you see that fame thrust upon her, just people everywhere? Oh, yeah. It was just, you know, it was crazy because like we'd be in Europe with her and, or do something like the Super Bowl, and you would just see like hundreds of people like chasing, you know, the vehicles that we were in, or you know, people like pushing through like, you know, just kind of like that frenzy that surrounds somebody when they're like that famous, I guess. But it's funny. I mean, and then I think I first realized the power of the whole thing, and also just what we were doing with her also, you know, style wise, it's funny because, you know, at the Super Bowl, you know, we tend to pull things out of our old, you know, old tricks. We did it in Mocking J2, which we can talk about later, but, you know, there was at the Super Bowl one year she performed with Aerosmith and Sink, and we ended up chopping off a, you know, athletic tube sock and making her this kind of one arm, you know, tube sock on her arm sleeve. Well, I remember that. Yeah, and it's something that we used to do. I mean, I used to always wear socks on my arms, and you know, it's just, it was a weird little thing that just kind of came from our past, and we threw it on her, and then the next thing you knew, you know, they were being, they were for sale, you know, in stores. You could, you could get these like socks for your arm, which I just thought was really funny, you know. And, and you were mentioning, I was talking about Dallas Buyers Club, which you just did an incredible job for, and as I mentioned, you were nominated, there, I understand you, you looked through thrift shops for the costumes, that was how you worked for that. It is important to you to have real clothes when you're looking for styles. Well, you know, the Dallas Buyers Club was a project that was really kind of near and dear to us, and it goes back to this idea of growing up in the 80s, because that's when the movie was taking place, and also that it was set in basically the Midwest, which we also related to. We really approached those characters and those people, and how they would, we shopped at the places that they would shop. I mean, for Rayon, if you're a woman in transition, and you're trying to find size 13 shoes for a great look, you know, you're not going to find them at, you know, Joss Lenzer, the department store, you're going to be going out to the thrift store to like, find those. So we were shopping at the same places that the characters would shop, you know. We found places where the oil field workers, you know, got rid of their old oil field working clothes, and that were falling apart, and that's where we found Matthew's clothes. I mean, a lot of the clothes on Matthew are from our own closets. And I mean, I think the budget really dictated that too, but I think it really was a small budget film. But we really, I think it was fun to embrace not having a lot of money, because I think that really reflected the characters that we were dressing. And you know, I remember not only in Houston, but I remember being in New Orleans shopping for Rayon and really digging through thrift stores and remembering when, when I was young and Denver and, you know, living this kind of life where I shopped in thrift stores and I dressed myself and I was trying to be an individual and I remember like finding something that I really, really loved. And I remember finding those things for Rayon and just, and just really trying to get into her head and thinking that Rayon would really love this and why and that, you know, it only cost five dollars and, you know, all that kind of stuff. I think really went into the character study for Rayon and everyone in that film. I understand though, because I read an intro that one of my favorites, Rocky Horror Picture Show has been an influence. Is that correct? Oh, that's funny because we were making a list of films that kind of spoke to us over the years. And of course, the Rocky Horror is like one, but it comes again to that same age growing up. And I think between the two of us, we've probably seen it over a couple hundred times. Yeah, no, that was the big high school thing to do, you know? Because I was thinking, you guys know that I read a rumor that they're doing a TV show with Laverne Cobb. Oh, I did just see that. And I'm like, you guys have to get on that. Yeah, no, I did just see that. And I know they did it on Broadway a few years ago and I think we were trying to worm our way into that. You have to. Yeah, no, Rocky Horror without a doubt, of course. The thing that I love about Rocky Horror besides the film, which is genius and the costumes in it are incredible, it became such a phenomenon, especially for when you were growing up. That was your opportunity to get dressed up and go be a freak and go downtown and go, you know, stay up late and sneak into something that seems so naughty, naughty. Well, yeah, that's good. I could talk for a long time about that, but let's move on to the incredible mocking J part one and two, which is the part two is about to premiere. This is the second film in the series that you guys are designing for. And we're going to look in some detail at some of the costumes soon, but a little bit of background compared to sort of the budget of Dallas Buyers Club, this must be huge. How many costumes in total and how many people have worked for you? Well, to maybe put it in perspective on Dallas Buyers Club, we were telling the producers that we needed to buy some hangers and they were like, "Well, do you really need hangers?" And in comparison, somebody told us the number and it still kind of freaks me out, but we dressed over 10,000 people over the course of the two films, and even saying that kind of just makes me feel weird to my stomach, 10,000 is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. It's weird. We did really go from Dallas Buyers Club to this film, and it was such a huge, huge opportunity for us and really exciting, and we really, I think, felt in good hands reconnecting with Francis. I just thought that was a perfect thing for us. Sorry, Francis worked with you with Britney Spears? Are you directed? Yeah, we did the slave video with Francis Lawrence, and that was the only time we worked with him previously, and I remember always saying to our agent we wanted to work with him again, and it never happened. So it was really nice to reconnect with him, and I think because in a lot of ways we came from the same place, having done a lot of commercials and music videos, I think we speak the same language somewhat and understand things in the same way, but Francis' dream to work with. Now, Morgan J has more of a military look, I think. What was your research process? Did you have reference photos and eras and things? Well, I thought we were so lucky to be able to design this point in the story and the franchise because it was, even though it was characters and continuing a story that had started to be told in the first two, it takes the straight into D-13, which is a completely different world from the capital, and especially so different from catching fire. It gave us an opportunity to completely go into this new territory, and for us that meant going straight into research. We were saying we find inspiration in a lot of things, and I think we first started looking into a whole bunch of isms, like futurism, utilitarianism, there have been different movements in history, usually after revolutions or during wars where there's been this idea that, you know, the purpose is more important than the individual, you know, Maoism, some early communism, we looked at a lot of isms. But I think ultimately, like the times of austerity in World War II and England and all of that was really inspiring to us, and only in the fact that, you know, resources were very scarce. I think there was a similarity to that in our approach to District 13, that there weren't a lot of resources, and that the population were really there as workers. So I think all those things, like being a little more precious about your resources and fabrics, and not having, you know, excess pleats and garments, or too many buttons, or, you know, anything extraneous, I thought was a really interesting approach to the clothing in District 13. And it's funny, because you go into these future kind of films, and I think our first take on things was maybe, you know, oh, you know, it needs to be, it has to have some futures, future-y style lines and that kind of thing, and it was weird, because then when we sat down with Francis, you know, we really kind of realized that there really is a functionality to this clothing, and it also kind of needed to be based in, it needed to be relatable, I think, in a way, and I think that's why we kind of harked back to kind of this classic Americana workware, and a real functionality to the clothing. And is everything made? You said that there were some things you had gone out and found, or is everything designed and constructed? No, we made a massive amount of clothes to dress those 10,000 people, but especially in D13, all of that was designed, and even though in some ways it sounds, it was kind of a monochromatic palette, we were in a world of gray. Even though that sounds kind of easy, you'd be shocked at how many different versions of gray there are, and how hard it is to match them with dyeing samples and different fabrics. I can imagine it's even harder than sort of being able to just go crazy with patterns and colors. Yeah, but, you know, it's funny, I thought World War II was an interesting research for us. A lot of even the fit, we found a beautiful book on the women of, it's The Waves, which were the women in the military, and there was some great pictures of women, groups of women doing calisthenics, and these high waisted, you know, forties pants with their shirts tucked in. And that was really kind of the inspiration for having the waist so high, like on Jennifer's pants, and even the guy's pants, the waist are a little high. I think it was driving everyone crazy because they weren't used to it. But that silhouette looked great. What's it like designing through the eyes of a character, so to speak? Senna is a designer in the movie. Yeah, that was such a cool experience, and so interesting because I think we actually maybe designed it in a really parallel way to him because, you know, Senna came from the Capitol, and I think our first pass at the Mockingjay costume, for lack of better words, I mean, it was a very kind of Capitol approach. It was pretty fantastic. The Mockingjay was a pretty fantastic costume, our first draft, and we showed our sketches to Francis, and Francis is so smart because we were looking at it and we were all excited and we all loved him, but he was like, you know, what if we actually stepped back and looked at this from Senna's point of view, that he knows we're better than anybody and that he knows she needs to actually lead an army and inspire an army and be relatable. So we came up with a new mantra which was "symbol" and "soldier," and we went for it again, and we started just looking at what the soldiers were wearing, and we started that as kind of the starting point for what her costume would be, so Francis was so smart to point us that way. I think the design of the costume too, we tried to make it really modular so that there were these fantastic elements about it. She has wings and all of that and with the armor, but it was really a functional garment and that could be the wings and all that little excess stuff, I think, was more ceremonial than anything, but it could be stripped down and she could be on a level playing field with the rest of the soldiers, but that was important for us. Well, we'll do a little bit interactive audio part because I love it. While Kurt and Bart are talking about these images, the listeners will be able to see them in the player, so I have them in front of me, and so we can talk a little bit more in detail and talking about your masterpiece, the mocking jay. It really looks like a sort of suit of armor. Yeah, no, I mean, again, going back to where you find inspiration, it's like one of the first things that we did when we were thinking about the mocking jay costume was visit this the armor collection at the Metropolitan Museum because they have this fantastic collection of armor from all over the world spanning many centuries and I think we also looked at paintings of Joan of Arc that was kind of an an early reference to just as far as an approach, but I really loved how it ended up in the end because we also didn't want it to. We didn't want her to feel like a superhero, you know, she was she was really the shape of her breastplate is based on Japanese armor for now, you know, cuto. It's like archery, Japanese archery. How long did it take you to make this? It involved a lot of people and I don't remember exactly how long, but it involved a lot of really great craftspeople because the the armor parts were all hand sculpted based upon, you know, her digital her digital form and, you know, the boots were custom made, the quivers were made by armors and we had a fantastic love maker who's probably an 80 year old, I think Armenian man who made her beautiful gloves that were so complex. We had the opportunity to start, most of our prep was started in Los Angeles, so we got to work with, you know, very closely with a lot of really incredible makers in Los Angeles before we moved to Atlanta where we shot most of the film. Let's move on a little bit to Effie. I have a picture of them in front of me, she has a red dress and there's another one in a blue with big sleeves. That must be a very fun character to design for. I think when we first read the script we felt a little gypped that we weren't going to get to create a bunch of fabulous outfits for Effie and these films but, you know, upon reading the script again I think it was really exciting for us to take a character like Effie and really strip her of all of that finery and fluff and kind of figure out how she would make it without all that stuff and I think that was the funnest character for us to do for sure. And what did you figure out? Well, what we figured out is that you can't stop somebody who wants to create a look given that some D13 issue closes and she can turn it into something that makes her happy. And I think one of the best references we had for her was Elliot Beale from Grey Gardens and I think it was just kind of this thing that clicked that, you know, Elliot Beale kind of, you know, I'm sure she had a ton of clothes but just the way she mixed and matched them and she didn't really know why but there was such a, she just kind of had to do it. And it was kind of with Effie. I mean, Effie had much less to deal with but I think it's just so ingrained in her that there has to be a new look every day. It was really fun to take those five pieces of clothing and do a fitting with Elizabeth and figure out how Effie would mix and match and twist and tie and, you know, we called it our project runway fitting. She was a hoot and Liz Banks knows the character so well too, it's hilarious because she walks into the room as Elizabeth Banks but it's like you throw her into any bit of clothes or in the shoes and she tosses her hand out and cocks her hip and all of a sudden she's Effie Trinket. I love it. I love how everything comes together, how you're finding the sort of sock for Brittany and rummaging and thrift stores for them and here again even the character itself is actually looking around for stuff to make herself fabulous. Well, even, I mean, talk about pulling out the old crazy nightclub tricks we used to do. I mean, even for Effie there was, you know, there were these big, you know, we thought oh well maybe she steals these kind of men's oversized D13 shirts and then she buttons two of them together in a certain way and it's one of my favorite looks she wears and it becomes this kind of forced leaped dress that she belts and it was just, you know, it was just the way of configuring something in a completely different way. But we used to wear that look out when we were going out. So when you ask what we were doing in the 80s, the work we were doing, we were just working on ourselves, I guess. And for this, that's amazing. I'm gonna, just one more thing, we've talked about the military, so we've talked about the incredible mocking J and the military aspects of it and Effie. I'd like to talk a little bit about the men's fashion in the Hunger Games here, the mocking J, the two you've done. I find it interesting that the men's fashion are just as interesting as the women, would you say? I think so. I mean, in the mocking J part one and two, a big part of it is the tactical, the combat gear, which was really cool to design because it was worn by both men and women, so it was very unisex and it's something that maybe people don't normally think of. But men's and women's clothing always close one direction or another. Women's shirts button the right over the left, the men left over right. And so when we were designing, the combat that we knew was gonna be worn by both men and women, we were like, well, who's gonna win? And we were like, well, of course, the women are gonna win because it's a girl who's out there leading this revolution, of course the girls gotta win. So even the men had clothes in the women's direction. But we did with the tactical stuff, we did get to collaborate and design the costume with a really amazing UK designer named I Torth group, who was early inspiration for us, for them, and we were lucky enough to work with him to create that because he really has an eye for not only just tactical silhouettes, but these very lean silhouettes, which were important to us for these soldiers. Well, it's his design approach too, I mean, I think so much of our design on this film was led by what the utility of it was or what its function was, and I Tor's super innovative in that way, I mean, his whole design approach is that, you know, function leads the design. What kind of material was it? Oh, it was crazy because the story of how we ended up with the fabric of what it is is so long that we couldn't even tell it here, because it just went through so many different versions and iterations and it ended up being a wax material that we washed all the wax out of and then re-dye. But it all kind of was in line with our whole approach to District 13, which was that, you know, they didn't really have access to technical fabrics or any sort of flash that the capital would have and that there really was, you know, everything in D13 was really made out of cotton or wool, even the shoes were made out of canvas, the shoes that people wore in their pods when they were just at home were made out of felt. So even the combat outfit was a cotton, you know, it was like a military cotton, but I thought that was really interesting to maintain that approach across all of District 13. Because you're working on so many levels, you have the picture itself and the District 13 and thinking of how they would do, but you also have a bunch of actors working many hours having to run around who needs, I'm sure you have to think of the material for their sake as well. Yeah, well that goes back to the function leading, the design, you know, so I'm thinking about what these guys have to do and if there's a lot of stunt, there's a lot of action that takes place, especially in Joaquin Jay Part II. So that definitely determined what the design was like just in terms of like, you know, how tight a sleeve is so that you can have maximum mobility and decreasing the amount of fabric behind a knee and in an elbow so that you'd be comfortable for actors. But it was really cool to see all the actors and all these different characters that are so established from the franchise, kind of all in the same costume in a way. And then to see like the little tweaks and twists of how each of them would wear that costume, it was great. Well, you've done an amazing job and I wish you the best of luck with this coming movie and your project and thank you so much for taking your time for this. No, thank you. Thank you so much to Kurt and Bart Hunger Games Mockingjay Part II premieres worldwide this week and it's available on iMacs too, which is very cool. And thank you so much to you for listening, for all your feedback. Please keep it coming on Twitter @PODPopCulture or on our Facebook site, PopCultureConfidential or on the website popcultureconfidential.com. This show was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Callboy, produced by Renee Vittishtet and myself. I'm Christina Yerling-Viro. Thank you so much for listening. Hello podcast fans, it is I, Bruce Volanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. In that time, I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly felt. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind the scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win, why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars, what were they thinking, available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]