Michele Orman, president of Lüp, had the privilege of talking with the renowned costume designer Karen Patchabout her work on the hit film Bride Wars, out in theaters now, starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway.
While her company, Lüp, has been doing product placement in film and television for years, and her online sourcebook, www.LupRocks.com connects designers directly with media, a one-on-one chat with a leading costumer is really the only way to know what exactly goes into the process of outfitting a cast for a big budget film. Michele Orman: What are some of your first considerations when you take on a new project?
Karen Patch: I know some people think that all I do is go shopping, but it’s so not that, you have no idea! First of all, I have to serve the story—it is character driven first. Then I have to figure out the color palates, the lighting, the set—all of these things before I can pick out the pretty dresses. I have to consider the lighting, the fabric of the couch, who is in the scene together and if they will look good together. So if Candace [Bergen] is wearing red and the two girls walk in, maybe they’ll look good in another color but do they look good together? You’re always putting a palate together for every scene.
MO: How do you prepare for the inevitable last-minute changes?
KP: We do a huge fitting in advance and I’ll build a closet that we can pull from instead of saying “Here, you’re wearing this in this scene.” In this case, Anne wears more pieces while Kate wears more outfits. Anne was a teacher and her wardrobe needed to reflect that so she was a little more “high-low” in the way she dressed. Like most of us, she would pair a piece from the Gap or Club Monaco with a cashmere sweater or a Theory dress. Kate on the other hand was a professional lawyer so we dressed her in more suits; pencil skirts and more pulled together, tailored looks. By having this big closet full of options, when something does change I have another outfit that the actress feels good in.
MO: Do they get a say in if they feel good in something or do you just tell them what to wear?
KP: I would never make an actress wear something she didn’t feel good in, unless it fits the story, and then I would try to persuade them, I wouldn’t insist. But when it’s contemporary clothing you have to have choices. The good thing about working with actresses like Kate and Anne is that they look good in anything, you really can’t go wrong. They are both beautiful and young and at the top of their games and everything is going to be seen and examined and copied. They make my job easy in that way.
MO: If I were in your position, I would have no idea where to even start. How do you source out the wardrobes for your casts? Do you attend fashion shows, read lots of magazines, do lots of personal shopping?
KP: (laughs) Yes, the answer is yes to all of those things. Sometimes I’m in showrooms, and sometimes I go to retail stores, and I read tons of magazines and I just know what’s out there so I can narrow it down to, say, the Dolce looks good, the Hugo Boss looks good, the Chanel looks good, Philip Lim blouses look good this season, so you’re starting to build from labels you already know for yourself. For a show like this, I’ll contact Chanel, I’ll call them and say this is what I’m looking for, do you have something like that in the archives or from next season, so I can find things that maybe the public can’t find. If I can work with small places and emerging designers I definitely do. If that company is excited about working with the particular actor, it makes life easier. And everybody wants to work with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway so that’s kind of ideal. All of these things for an actor are character driven. From the beginning they may be excited about something but it may never get used because during the course of the film, they get more into the character and less away from the fashion of things.
MO: So at the end of the day, are you happy with how the film turned out?
KP: Yes, I’m very happy with how it looks. It looks like “my” film, and I don’t know what that is actually, but I know it looks good, it looks kind of rich in a way but at the same time, it looks believable.
(Photo Credit: Claire Folger)
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