Native Intelligence: Outside Western Costume Company it's a rainy January day, but inside it still feels like Christmas. That's because Trumbo costume designer Daniel Orlandi is doing a show and tell with Hedda Hopper's hats from the film. Just arrived back from various exhibits, the hats, kept in carefully labeled white boxes, are sumptuous and spectacular, even off the head of Helen Mirren, the actress who plays the late Los Angeles Times gossip columnist in the 2015 biopic about black-listed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Orlandi used pieces from his own collection to embellish the hats, including hand-painted and celluloid flowers that will melt if wet.
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Hats are SUCH an important resource in costume design, whether or not a film revolves around a character known for their headwear. A hat can convey anger, joy, mystery, innocence, wealth, poverty, ethnicity, social hierarchy - just about anything an actor needs it to. As Orlandi states, it is so important to have collaboration in fittings with actors for this specific reason: It's their performance, and they need that hat to perform just as much as they are. It's a lucky thing that a designer who understands this need was assigned to a production which makes such use of this device, for collaboration was obviously needed more than ever to get this right. Hedda Hopper's mentality behind wearing the hats she did was clearly also important to understand, and Orlandi did well with this. I think this film more than ever will convey to budding costumers and consummate professionals alike the importance of such seemingly insignificant accessories.
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