How Nightmare Alley Costume Designer Luis Sequeira Brought Vintage Fashion Back To Life [Interview]

You get the opportunity to display fairly a increase and tumble for Stan. How’d you want to talk that arc?

At the starting it was all about in good shape, the modifications in suit, the changes in colour palette, the variations in old as opposed to new, worn as opposed to totally new, tweedy as opposed to slick. At the commencing, the match was looser, saggier, quite very well worn which gave him a foundation of character. And then when he moved to the city, it was abandoning anything from that previously part of the motion picture and creating this new character with only the finest in tailor-made clothes, and ties, and silk, and hats. And so, that was excellent to set with each other, what I would say, a selection of costumes that felt cohesive to this new man or woman.

When he’s executing those shows at his peak, was that vintage or developed?

We built that. In precise actuality, for the characters we crafted possibly 90% of every thing that you saw on monitor. In many cases in the carnival, we experienced to contend with all the people being in the rain, so we created everything and then aged that out to have the multiples prepared. And then with the tails, we constructed individuals. In regards to the suits, we have been fortunate to have some first 1939 deadstock British isles government issued satisfies that we have been in a position to pull designs from, so that we were being getting actually the exact model notes and in good shape of that period for standing satisfies.

What’s special about British isles governing administration issued fits?

There was precise yardage that you experienced to make a accommodate, and it would get a seal of approval. It experienced never ever been worn, had primary tagging all around it and we ended up pretty fortuitous to have been lent by a personal collector to replicate them.

Due to the fact your do the job is impressed by character, and Stan is this kind of a thriller at instances, how’d he encourage you?

I imagine it was about intake in the 2nd aspect of the movie, where he was just consuming in the sense of providing this facade. In a couple of events you’ll see a canary shirt in a single change and a wild tie in yet another and that was sort of a tiny bit of very little telltale indications that he was not all complete. At the end, it truly is this total circle tale that couldn’t get any worse than it does. I believe it actually was, in the next 50 percent, about the intake of just getting that his life was closing in and he was just putting on the armor.

You worked on “Nightmare Alley” for two years, correct? Wherever did your work commence?

I commenced in June 2019 and I went to Europe to start accumulating apparel, accomplishing flea markets and antique sellers, and shopping for fabrics that I preferred to use in the movie. We experienced a pause in output in the fall for a couple of weeks. And then we shot our metropolis factor of the film and then COVID hit and we were being down, and we waited six months to start back again up. And then we proceeded to do the carnival and had 6 months to get ready for the carnival, which appears like a long time but all of the prep do the job we experienced done prior, a good deal of it was null and void. These extras ended up no longer accessible, and so we had to refit people people. We concluded close to Christmas, so it was a quite extended course of action and I was grateful for the time, mainly because even in the downtime it gave me an prospect to genuinely move absent from the metropolis and truly emphasis on the place part of the film.