CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Deena Appel on Creating the Costume World of The Spy Who Shagged Me

Clothes on Film: The second installment (part one HERE) of our extensive interview with Austin Powers trilogy costume designer Deena Appel, this time focusing on The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999, again directed by Jay Roach).

Things change up in The Spy Who Shagged Me, for in addition to costuming the modern and swinging sixties world of Austin Powers, his character also travels to 1969, i.e. the ‘hippie era’. The first film was a tremendous success and Appel’s contribution solidified her as the only person who could return to costume this fabulous, vibrant landscape.

1 comment:

Sophie N. said...

I have never actually seen Austin Powers so for the entirety of this article I was a little lost. But it was super cool to see through a seasoned costume designers eyes and how she thought about each costume and the fabric choices she made. Its also interesting to see the difference between a live performance and a film and how the tech works for each of those. It is so different to design for a stage because of the different distances to the audience. In a film, everything has to be perfect but on stage there is room for a little error. However the time to change costumes is vastly different and contributes to the differences in techniques that each designer employs. For onstage you have to think about quick changes and all that but not on film. Besides all that I thought is was really cool to see her process and look at her designs in comparison to stills from the movie because it is obvious that her vision did come through.