During a legendary night of storytelling, Mary Shelley-Wollstonecraft told the tale of obsession, hubris, and revenge that would become, arguably, the world’s first science fiction novel. Like any foundational story, it has been adapted, reimagined, and elaborated upon many times. Costume designer Kate Hawley has collaborated with Guillermo del Toro on an adaptation of the book that both maintains fidelity to the original material and reenvisions the characters via the director’s distinctive style, finding humanity in the most unlikely places. The film begins and ends on a ship frozen in the ice—the end of Frankenstein’s long chase after his creation.

We are introduced to the title character as a boy. Family mixes aspiration with trauma for young Victor Frankenstein. Leopold (Charles Dance) and Claire (Mia Goth) are simultaneously remote yet overwhelming parental archetypes. Claire wears startling blood reds that are thematic throughout the film. “There was a lot of discussion of the sort of reds we’d use to make them rich and vibrant but still have depth to them,” Hawley explains. “Guillermo establishes his language early, and when an audience sees Victor’s mother on the steps, they understand this is a story that has that theatricality, and can accept the rules of the world.” Leopold is a study in dignity, reserve, and control. “We’re always working with the actors and utilizing their physicality and presence. Charles is such an imposing figure. Honestly, you could put a sack on him and he’d be magnificent. He’s an overwhelming shadow over Victor, and that’s where his big entrance with the cloak and hat came in.”

First clothed in decaying bandages that form a macabre shroud, upon escaping from Frankenstein, the Creature (Jacob Elordi) takes a trenchcoat from the body of a fallen soldier. As the story and character develop, he adds to his costume until it becomes a sort of patchwork of cast-off, scavenged, and coiled together material—not unlike the Creature himself. “In the novel, the melancholy of the Creature and his sadness is as potent as the violence,” Hawley notes. “Guillermo spoke a lot about this. I looked at a lot of pictures of mummification to see how the clothes mold to the skeleton as the flesh disappears. Though it’s based on a Crimean coat, we developed its own language in the details—the memory of flayed skin and skeleton in the cloth going up through the neck.”

Working with the director and the actor on the costumes for Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) was a dream collaboration. Del Toro envisioned the character as more of an artist than a scientist, which jived with the creative spirit of all involved, and gave them a lot of freedom. “Oscar loved that his hat came from a more French bohemian world, so we played with those elements. I looked at pictures from William Blake, but also Nureyev in his Parisian apartment. I looked at photos of Damien Hirst, Picasso, and Francis Bacon painting in their work clothes.” The results are costumes that show a steady progression into obsession that balances, and falters, on a tightrope of madness. “There’s one moment where we had a leather apron that suggests skin, but as an artist during the creation scenes, he’s fully into the muse and nothing else matters.”
Simultaneously love interest, sympathizer, and advocate, Elizabeth Lavenza (also played by Mia Goth) goes from his brother’s fiancée to a remote ideal for Victor to the Creature’s ill-fated paramour. Elizabeth’s costumes match her progression through the film as she sympathizes and aligns with the Creature. “Both Elizabeth and Claire are color-coded in different ways, and they have a kind of luminosity, almost like they’re illusions,” Hawley explains. “The language of her blue dress is about X-rays, and the bride’s corset echoes the skeleton of the Creature.” At a climactic confrontation during her wedding to William Frankenstein (Felix Kammerer), she wears a wedding dress of startling beauty and significance with sleeves and corsetry that rhyme with the Creature’s bandages and evoke the 1935 classic, Bride of Frankenstein. Several pieces of Elizabeth’s jewelry were created in collaboration with Tiffany & Co., including replicas from their archives and some bespoke items. “Guillermo drops wonderful notes about the theology of nature and religion, so that became the basis for the cross with the beetle inside.”

Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) is an original character for the film. A man of science and an arms dealer, he finances Frankenstein but with a dark, personal agenda. “The way the story developed in rehearsals with Christoph, he ended up becoming much more restrained, to emphasize what is revealed later.”
Being flexible with the costumes to reflect the creation of the character is vital to the process. “That’s my first job. Once you’re working with your director and actors, things develop. You could feel Christoph building the character, and it’s all about supporting that. He loved his overly tight tan gloves and was almost rolling on the floor in his fox fur. So sometimes we’d come away from fittings saying, ‘right, let’s go and make it now.’”

Hawley attributes the success of the project to a combination of crew and croissants. “Deadlines are always a big deal, but the challenge is to maintain a couture level of tailoring. My lead assistant costume designer, Renée Fontana, is very patient,” she laughs. “My other assistants, Alexandra Guillot and David Craig, were so clever about how we sampled things. I always make sure my main team sees what they contribute, it’s lovely to have that little moment of celebration, have a croissant and get on to the next one. When you can see the elements link to the creature with his beautiful porcelain face so many things that find their language distilled through the work every department is doing.”