The ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ ghost costumes were partly based on chunky real estate salesmen’s uniforms.
Director Tim Burton, 66, who has brought out the sequel to his classic ‘Beetlejuice’ comedy horror 35 years after the release of the original, recruited veteran designer Colleen Atwood to painstakingly give updated spins on the now-iconic outfits worn in the 1988 flick, such as lead character Lydia Deetz’s wedding dress.
Colleen, 75, told CNN about her approach to the movie sequel’s outfits: “For the (scenes set in the) underworld (an afterlife waiting room for the undead) I really was looking at the 1970s.
“We’ve got people painted all different colours. So sort of taking colours that look good with a blue face that aren’t too bright or that overwhelm them. And it ended up being sort of a ‘70s palette.
“Within the underworld, there’s people that have been in there longer than others.
“So I have stuff from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, and I have stuff from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. All different periods combined down there, but the palette is controlled within a certain parameter.
“There’s also “the Bob’s”, who are the shrinkers (or zombies) in the underworld. My inspiration for them was old Century 21 Real Estate guys that used to wear matching gold-coloured blazers, a brown tie and a white shirt. I had very specific ideas for that part of the world.”
When asked how she coped with designing costumes for a film with so many historic fashion moments, Colleen replied: “When you take an iconic person, you nod into the iconic.
“Beetlejuice (played again by Michael Keaton) stayed in the same style of striped suit, but it wasn’t the same suit.
“He is an older, more worn Beetlejuice with a little bit more of a paunch, so I aged the suit in a way that was refined, and wasn’t just like dirt rubbed on it. “The idea was that he’d had it on for 35 more years, that he’d been hanging out for a while in it.
“We used a more organic material than the original, which meant it had a little more softness to it because it had been aged to look that way.
“Same thing with his wedding tuxedo. It had the feeling of a cheap rented tux, but with more fit. We had fun and it was a challenge, but we wanted to honour the work done before by Aggie Rodgers (the costume designer who worked on the original film), yet in today’s world.”
