A look into Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood’s fashion inspirations for Tim Burton’s Wednesday remake.
Netflix
Tim Burton’s Wednesday continues to captivate audiences and accrue a cult-like following with the show returning to its number-one spot five weeks after its debut. Much of the success and critical acclaim for the reimagining of this classic tale goes to the creators and showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar who breathed new life into the “crazy and kooky” supernatural comedy-horror starring Jenny Ortega as the titular character. The pair melded new lore into the well-known Charles Addams characters, creating a coming-of-age story centering the sardonic Addams family teen, Wednesday.
The new series reads as a modern amalgamation that revisits the eccentric family’s roots and pays homage to the various Addams Family iterations before them. Their signature aristocratic gothic look – a distinct marker of each adaptation – was resurrected and elevated by veteran costume designer Colleen Atwood. In an exclusive interview with The Wrap, Atwood provided an inside look into the crafting of Wednesday’s signature Neo-Gothic fashion.
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Atwood is a long-time, consistent collaborator with Burton, having worked on numerous projects such as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Naturally, she was tapped to tailor a wardrobe for the delightfully macabre series. The series’ updated fashion became a pillar that connected the modernization of Wednesday with the distinctively reminiscent style of its distant predecessors. The process was handled with extreme precision, in a way that reinvented the renowned characters and found roots for new ones.
“She begins as Wednesday in an American school, with her typical Wednesday dress where she stood out amongst all the kids and their hipster, American colors, and then she goes to Nevermore, and the second she gets [there], she gets the uniform that’s her special uniform,” Atwood mentioned when speaking on Wednesday’s styling. “So immediately you’re in a new world with her. Her off-duty and her casual clothes became a big part of the story — running around, doing stuff — so we could incorporate contemporary fashion.”
For new additions, Atwood worked with the actors to synthesize the character’s recognizable style. Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”— which depicts a woman sporting a high-collared three-piece suit and an updo — became the source of inspiration for Headmistress of Nevermore Larissa Weems’ fashion and character persona. Portrayed by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), she spoke highly of the legendaric designer for her ability to “carve out a character” using obscure but timely references along with the actors’ best assets. Christie likened Atwood’s work to “witchcraft” due to her ability to transform the body. Together, the pair collaborated on the principal’s character design, establishing Larissa’s intrinsic duality that appears through her fashion.
“We have a bracelet covered in eyes, and so I liked the idea of those being active and always watching,” Christie explained. “And so no matter where she was, Larissa had a 360-degree view of what was going on. But also, Larissa wears a Gemini necklace very often, which of course is duality and the twins and so we have that duality captured in the necklace piece that she wears by Schiaparelli, so Larissa’s shapeshifting and dual sense is always hiding in plain sight.”
Related: Wednesday: The Best Fashion Moments From the Show, Ranked
Tim Burton Declined Multiple Addams Family Remakes Before Signing On For Wednesday
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Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar have created a hit series that continues to break streaming records and has devoted fans at the edge of their seats for Wednesday’s renewal. The duo constructed the idea for the two-time Golden Globe-nominated series from a six-word-long pitch concept in 2019, and Tim Burton was always their “first choice” to helm their creation. With Burton’s affinity for hauntingly gothic masterpieces, his involvement seemed inevitable. However, the expert auteur has passed on Addams family projects before, most notably the 1991 eponymous film which went on to be directed by Barry Sonnenfeld.
Burton’s decision to come on board was largely in part to the story Gough’s and Millar’s crafted in their four preliminary scripts that made their way to Burton’s desk by 2020. According to Gough, the acclaimed director “committed on the spot” upon reading them, sealing his involvement and subsequent television directorial entry. When speaking on the series to Empire, he detailed his attraction towards this Wednesday adaptation mentioning he and the titular character share similar worldviews.
“When I read this [script],” he says, “it just spoke to me about how I felt in school and how you feel about your parents, how you feel as a person. It gave the Addams Family a different kind of reality. It was an interesting combination.
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