Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Jacqueline West created an otherworldly “modieval” style full of beauty and brutalism with her awe-inducing costume designs in DUNE: PART ONE. She oversaw the creation of hundreds of stunning designs ranging from papal-esque robes to moisture-wicking, desert-outfitted bodysuits inspired by those in Frank Herbert’s novel – and earned an Oscar nomination for it. Her work in the riveting continuing second chapter DUNE: PART TWO is equally captivating and compelling, doubling down on the breathtaking fashions as previously seen. And her delicate, deeply detailed craftsmanship evolves character arcs, in addition to weaving together period and present era patterns, giving the Denis Villeneuve’s vision space-age spectacle.
Did being in the desert for the first chapter impact your color pallet used in this next one?
“Definitely. But I had to change it because there’s a big shift from Northern Arrakis, where we start with them to the worm ride to the South, when it’s the Fremen world. I made it a much lighter palette. I really followed the whole nomadic thing – the whole LAWRENCE OF ARABIA desert. You can’t wear dark colors in the desert or you would bake. I followed all nomadic cultures. It seems like the areas that are the most desert – in the Gobi, in North Africa, where you really get into the Sahara – all the colors of Nomads has really gotten lighter. It’s a different palette I wanted to follow.
Also, in the Sietch, it’s very dark and I wanted to keep them light so there was almost a glow coming from the Fremen. They’re the holy ones. I wanted you to really see them as this almost kind of holiness about them. I did that with using all different textures of linens that we glean, not only from Thailand and Siam, but all over Italy. I had my friend in Lucca, Genni Tommassi, weave certain things for Chani and some of Lady Jessica’s clothing and Timothée’s [Chalamet] clothing, like his cloaks and the hooded mantles he wears. But mostly the fabric was purchased.
It was hand dyed in our work room by [chief textile artist] Matt Reitsma and then printed by this army of young artists, women and men, we had long 50 ft. tables and they would stretch these long, long pieces of linen out after he dyed them and they would all sit on the tables – it was so beautiful to watch – and hand paint, or hand block print, those fabrics. They came up with the designs, most of them are based on the Fremen alphabet that the art department created for the film.
It had to really feel grounded and earthy and real. When they go outside, you’ll see their cloaks get to be more the color of the sand – the color Denis is shooting against, the more orangey, salmon-y colors.
The stillsuits blend in with the rocks. By adding all these cloaks to them, I could shift their shape, like the sand shifts so they wouldn’t be all in the same shape as the stillsuit and give them all a distinction that way. But I did change the colors when we went to the outside the Sietch.”
All of that tactile quality represents perfectly on screen.
“I call it the Fremen Home Collection.”
There would absolutely be a market for it. For the stillsuits, was it mostly about modulating what already existed their world and dry aging it a little bit?
“The stillsuits stayed the same. We had to remanufacture a lot of it because it was trashed from the battle scenes in DUNE PART ONE. But we didn’t change the design. Some of them, we just had to replace pieces that took too much wear and tear, or were broken in the battle, or came off or disassembled themselves in those incredible battle scenes. What we added was worm-riding armor for the desert. That became the bigger helmet with the goggles. They really were blasted by sand.
Gergely was my Hungarian armorer, though I made armor in London and all of Josh Brolin’s desert smugglers was all done in Los Angeles. Gergely lives on an island in the Danube [and he has] this romantic, beautiful workshop where he creates armor for different movies. He created this, we drew it, and he came up with the fabrications and the textures and made the real sand pitted armor that they put over their stillsuits that give it a much bigger silhouette for the worm ride to give them more protection.”
The headdresses on the women – particularly on Princess Irulan and Lady Jessica where they’re evolving in their character arcs – are absolute stunners. Were these exactly how you dreamt them up? How was the process with the beadwork? Was it similar to the Reverend Mother Mohiam’s beaded veil?
“Irulan, from the first time we see her with that almost medieval beaded, honeycomb piece [on her head], yes, that harkens back to Reverend Mother Mohiam’s veil she wears when she first interrogates our young star. That’s supposed to show that she’s part of that Bene Gesserit world, but I wanted to keep her also a Princess so that it becomes almost her futuristic tiara.
Then we start seeing her in those elaborate headdresses that kind of imprison her face, that harkens back to nuns when I was a child in Catholic schools and how their habits pinched their faces. I did it all with beads to keep her quite regal. I had incredible older woman from Hungary who would sit in my workshop for days on end doing those beaded…they’re all hand-beaded. We made a mold of [Pugh’s] head from the art department and she worked on those for Pugh. She had many going at once. It was quite elaborate with big trays of beads. She wanted to sit and do it with me so I could pick which beads I wanted and where I wanted to see [Pugh’s] skull through.
Then when we get to the chainmail on Florence, she’s a warrior princess at that point joining our prince and ruling the universe. I wanted to keep her quite powerful but still keep that Bene Gesserit hooded thing going on within the armored look of the chainmail dress.”
I still dream about that dress with the empire waistline and the lattice work in that chainmail below.
“I had wonderful jewelry makers. Several people worked on that at once. One did the sleeves. One would work on the more lattice see-through parts of it. My specialty costumer Ruben Duran was incredible. He’s from Spain and had done a lot of movies with armor. He helped with the construction of that headdress. It’s quite queen-like, I think.”
The jewelry on Lady Jessica in her last appearance in this film, where she’s in that burnt sienna cloak…
“…When she’s a Reverend Mother as opposed to the very dark, Northern Reverend Mothers of the Emperors World. Those Bene Gesserits are very dark – the dark nuns. These are the more desert nuns in sepias and richer colors. I made a very big distinction there. It’s a different sect of Bene Gesserit. Her costume really evolved with all of them. I don’t know if you remember the scene where she comes through the door and all the ancient Reverend Mothers that have gone before her all come through with her. They’re all different but they’re all this shape of an Egyptian mummy case.”
I am absolutely creeped out by Feyd’s “picadors” in the arena sequence. Those full bodysuits and hammerhead headdresses look like something out of Coppola’s DRACULA. I’d love talk to you about creating that look. Were they black or another color?
“They’re all black. All of Giedi Prime is black. It’s very goth. It’s very sinister and very vampire – you hit it on the nose. Even the women around him in his world, in the black stretch leather with the black teeth, it’s very vampire-esque.
The picadors were all black. A very interesting thing happened with those picadors. First of all, I came up with a similar design – a little bit more Spanish. Denis came to me with a stick drawing that I think came to him from his concept artist and I just flipped when I saw it. I expanded on that and then came up with something and showed Denis and he said, ‘I deeply love it!’ It changed the shape of my picadors to more pointy and sadistic and sharp. They look like pics themselves. We got very skinny, elongated dancers with incredible ballet bodies when they put those suits on.
What happened was I had never worked with infrared before and when you shoot in infrared, certain blacks, depending on the fabrication, will go white. So I had to reconstruct certain pieces and had to start camera testing everything we used in that arena scene, everything we built for Feyd, everything we built for the Baron, everything we built for Lady Fenring. That whole gladiator scene had to be tested to make sure the black we were using stayed black on camera.”
That’s amazing to be able to compensate at that rate!
“And quickly! Of course, the pattern pieces were all made and it was just replacing certain sections of all the costumes.”
Feyd’s look is also very unique. He sported some embossed leather…
“It came a lot from Giger, the artist. We wanted him to be more complex than just black leather. I didn’t want it to look too S&M. He should have some luxuriousness about him. He’s sorta the crown prince now of that world. I wanted to keep him rich but have his clothing have a real movement to it. The pieces were almost medieval – a medieval soldier – which I took from tapestries in Avignon, France of that style of killer warrior. Again, ‘modieval.’”
We don’t often see footwear on screen, but it’s part of an outfit. How did you source those materials?
“I originally came from the fashion world and feel like the shoes have to reflect the rest of the dress even if you don’t see them. It makes the actors really feel they’re in a different wardrobe than they are as a person. They’re actually a different person and so you have to give them shoes. You have to do everything different.
You know, I had to create futuristic underwear so they wouldn’t just be putting on their Victoria’s Secret stuff. It was very streamlined and we made a lot of it in house so it would disappear on the body. It would be laser-cut silk and stretchy silk, but very streamlined.
We made all of the shoes in Italy and some of them were still Eastern [in style] with the curled toe. We took old fashioned shoe designs, even from the Mongols and different Arab, African and Nomadic cultures and tried to take them into the future and give them to the people in the Sietch and the characters when they weren’t in their stillsuits. Feyd’s shoes we made. They were an extension of his black leather armor.”
I have a feeling this will be a short answer as I know you don’t think about the next chapter just yet in this process. But I’ll ask on the off-chance: Denis has shared in the past that there’s already a script in the works for a third installment based on Dune Messiah. And I read an interview with Hans Zimmer where he said Denis left that book with him as a hint and he’s continuing to compose new music. Did Denis also plop the book down on your workstation as a little nudge?
“No.”
DUNE: PART TWO is now playing in theaters.
