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Friday, February 09, 2024
LISA FRANKENSTEIN Costume Designer Talks Capturing The '80s Goth Teen Dream
www.fangoria.com: The costumes of Diablo Cody movies, from the "indie sleaze" sweatshirts and knee socks of Juno to the subversively girly heart prints and miniskirts of Jennifer's Body, are some of the most enduring sartorial creations of the aughts.
I really love the specific vibe created by the costume design of this movie. Ignoring the fact that the plot sounds like it’s just Twilight but with a zombie instead of a vampire, and it also happens in the eighties, it seems great. It really seems like the design was well-done in a natural way, without it seeming excessive and artificial. I like how Lisa’s goth fashion is isolated from the rest of the world around her, which is a really nice way to make her different from the rest of the world, yet it is all cohesively eighties. I also love the Pabst dream dress. I have no idea what this dream sequence is about, how it’s contextualized by the rest of the movie, or anything about why it is a Pabst Blue Ribbon dress specifically, but I think it’s great. It’s super fun, and I am definitely in awe as to how it was hand painted.
I am very excited for this movie, which I believe is very recently out now or will be very soon. I have been seeing trailers on tik tok and youtube about this movie for the past few weeks and have really enjoyed the vibe it's giving. I love a lot of these cult classic 80s films like Heathers that this movie seems to be referencing, and I have very surprisingly been enjoying a lot of these revamped 80s slasher films. Totally Killer was one that came out last year I believe and I thought it was going to be okay but I ended up having a lot of fun watching it. It seems like Lisa Frankenstein is hitting on the same troupes that made Totally Killer so enjoyable which I am hoping holds true for the film. The costumes look super fun and campy and I will definitely be seeing this movie soon! (I also really like Katherine as an actress)
I am literally in love with the whole story of frankenstein. Mary Shelley was a really cool person and I did Frankenstein as my first full Scenic Design play in high school. I really like the costumes and the overall vibe that I'm getting from this movie. Lisa Frankenstein seems cool and I might have to give it a watch! Also the costume designer did a really good job fitting into the time period while expressing the goth and somewhat Whimsical part of this story. I'm really curious how Mary Shelleey even thought of Frankenstein, granted people think of weird stuff all the time, including myself. but the story behind the actual writing of the book and everything like that is super cool and also Mary Shelly's husband sucks. Moral of the story this costume designer ate. I love the black Lacey look with the heavy makeup. It is gorgeous.
I find it really interesting how the article discusses the fine line of going “over the top” with costumes, and how the designer and director actually grew up in the 80s, so know what it was really like versus the stereotype. It must be interesting trying to find that middle ground between the things known in popular culture and ideas about the decade, versus your own experiences, and that of the characters. Combining the fun 80s style with Frankenstein and monster-esc aesthetics looks really fun, and I’m interested to look into this more, and am excited to see it! It was also fascinating to read how much was in the script itself, I feel most of the time I’d assume that general ideas of costumes may be mentioned (she was wearing a dress), but not specific band T-shirts! To pick not what they’re wearing but what specific style of shirt per the band (named in the script) is so interesting, and a completely different way to go about costuming than I’d previously considered. It’s also so cool how she hand-painted the dream sequence dress! I now would love to watch that sequence, so I gain a better understanding of the importance of the dress in the moment and the context that it lives in.
This article was the first I heard of Lisa Frankenstein. It looks super good. I will definitely look into it more. I really enjoyed the photos included in this article. In many articles about costume design they just talk to the costume designer and there aren’t any photos of their process. In this article they included not only costume drawings but also the mood boards that the designer made for the costumes. It was also really interesting to read about the designer’s buying and making process. I can definitely learn from it. I also like that they included shop photos of the costumes and progress photos of the costumes. Oftentimes we only get to see the finished product and it’s so nice to see the process for once. When looking through more of the mood boards I saw the phrase “Victorian fever dream” which is such a wonderful inspirational phrase and I love it. It really explains what she was going for. I wish I could compare mood boards to finished costumes.
If I were drawn to costume design, these projects would be the kind of things I’d want to work on. I love the mix of everyday wear but for unique characters. Then combine that with the fact that there is a very distinct time period; how fun! I loved this article because we could actually see the inspiration boards and research that went into it. A lot of the time, when I see costume design articles, they include photos of the final product and maybe some renderings. I loved being able to really see into the design process in this way. I'm glad that the designer mentioned Winona Ryder as an inspiration for these costumes because she was one of the first things that came to mind when I saw them. My favorite costume out of the bunch was Cole Sprouse's dream sequence look. I love the look of two-dimensional shapes on three-dimensional objects.
6 comments:
I really love the specific vibe created by the costume design of this movie. Ignoring the fact that the plot sounds like it’s just Twilight but with a zombie instead of a vampire, and it also happens in the eighties, it seems great. It really seems like the design was well-done in a natural way, without it seeming excessive and artificial. I like how Lisa’s goth fashion is isolated from the rest of the world around her, which is a really nice way to make her different from the rest of the world, yet it is all cohesively eighties. I also love the Pabst dream dress. I have no idea what this dream sequence is about, how it’s contextualized by the rest of the movie, or anything about why it is a Pabst Blue Ribbon dress specifically, but I think it’s great. It’s super fun, and I am definitely in awe as to how it was hand painted.
I am very excited for this movie, which I believe is very recently out now or will be very soon. I have been seeing trailers on tik tok and youtube about this movie for the past few weeks and have really enjoyed the vibe it's giving. I love a lot of these cult classic 80s films like Heathers that this movie seems to be referencing, and I have very surprisingly been enjoying a lot of these revamped 80s slasher films. Totally Killer was one that came out last year I believe and I thought it was going to be okay but I ended up having a lot of fun watching it. It seems like Lisa Frankenstein is hitting on the same troupes that made Totally Killer so enjoyable which I am hoping holds true for the film. The costumes look super fun and campy and I will definitely be seeing this movie soon! (I also really like Katherine as an actress)
I am literally in love with the whole story of frankenstein. Mary Shelley was a really cool person and I did Frankenstein as my first full Scenic Design play in high school. I really like the costumes and the overall vibe that I'm getting from this movie. Lisa Frankenstein seems cool and I might have to give it a watch! Also the costume designer did a really good job fitting into the time period while expressing the goth and somewhat Whimsical part of this story. I'm really curious how Mary Shelleey even thought of Frankenstein, granted people think of weird stuff all the time, including myself. but the story behind the actual writing of the book and everything like that is super cool and also Mary Shelly's husband sucks. Moral of the story this costume designer ate. I love the black Lacey look with the heavy makeup. It is gorgeous.
I find it really interesting how the article discusses the fine line of going “over the top” with costumes, and how the designer and director actually grew up in the 80s, so know what it was really like versus the stereotype. It must be interesting trying to find that middle ground between the things known in popular culture and ideas about the decade, versus your own experiences, and that of the characters. Combining the fun 80s style with Frankenstein and monster-esc aesthetics looks really fun, and I’m interested to look into this more, and am excited to see it! It was also fascinating to read how much was in the script itself, I feel most of the time I’d assume that general ideas of costumes may be mentioned (she was wearing a dress), but not specific band T-shirts! To pick not what they’re wearing but what specific style of shirt per the band (named in the script) is so interesting, and a completely different way to go about costuming than I’d previously considered. It’s also so cool how she hand-painted the dream sequence dress! I now would love to watch that sequence, so I gain a better understanding of the importance of the dress in the moment and the context that it lives in.
This article was the first I heard of Lisa Frankenstein. It looks super good. I will definitely look into it more. I really enjoyed the photos included in this article. In many articles about costume design they just talk to the costume designer and there aren’t any photos of their process. In this article they included not only costume drawings but also the mood boards that the designer made for the costumes. It was also really interesting to read about the designer’s buying and making process. I can definitely learn from it. I also like that they included shop photos of the costumes and progress photos of the costumes. Oftentimes we only get to see the finished product and it’s so nice to see the process for once. When looking through more of the mood boards I saw the phrase “Victorian fever dream” which is such a wonderful inspirational phrase and I love it. It really explains what she was going for. I wish I could compare mood boards to finished costumes.
If I were drawn to costume design, these projects would be the kind of things I’d want to work on. I love the mix of everyday wear but for unique characters. Then combine that with the fact that there is a very distinct time period; how fun! I loved this article because we could actually see the inspiration boards and research that went into it. A lot of the time, when I see costume design articles, they include photos of the final product and maybe some renderings. I loved being able to really see into the design process in this way. I'm glad that the designer mentioned Winona Ryder as an inspiration for these costumes because she was one of the first things that came to mind when I saw them. My favorite costume out of the bunch was Cole Sprouse's dream sequence look. I love the look of two-dimensional shapes on three-dimensional objects.
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