CNN
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In “Euphoria,” storytelling doesn’t just happen by means of crafting, songs and cinematography, but via its characters’ dresses.
“You can get the opportunity to address every single single component of a costume to connect,” Heidi Bivens, the show’s head costume designer, discussed above the cellphone to CNN. “That’s the color, texture, shape, silhouette … how new one thing appears as opposed to how worn in. You can expose or conceal someone’s psychological condition. The nonverbal clues create a mood.”
“Euphoria,” the award-successful HBO present produced and principally written by Sam Levinson, unflinchingly portrays an ensemble forged of youngsters grappling with prescription drugs, sexuality and relational hardships in today’s age of social media and perpetual stress.
(HBO is owned by CNN’s parent firm, Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Its illustration of youth tradition — of which vogue is a important identifier — has made “a whole lot of individuals (come to feel) witnessed through the display in a way that they possibly have not in other people,” Bivens explained.
In a new ebook, “Euphoria Vogue,” the costume designer reveals her process. Its pages contain guiding-the-scenes breakdowns to discussions with the show’s forged customers there are also Q&As with style designers which includes Coperni’s Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, as very well as historical essays on staples worn by the solid, this kind of as Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars.
Bivens’ work on “Euphoria” has deeply resonated among the the show’s fans.
The hashtag #euphoriaoutfits features in hundreds of films shared on TikTok, and accounts for 28.3 million sights on the social media platform. Some of these videos present outfit recreations, although some others are of young men and women adopting a character’s style behaviors, or what they’d wear if they went to “Euphoria Superior.” Sleuthing viewers have also determined important pieces worn by the solid, and share wherever individuals can get them — or more inexpensive variations thereof.
The series’ vogue has also motivated makes: In 1 episode from time two, Maddy (performed by Alexa Demie) rifles by means of the closet of a female whose child she babysits, sporting a classic Blumarine T-shirt.
“Now they’ve brought back those people specific silhouettes,” Bivens wrote in the book of a constrained version re-concern of the shirt the Italian vogue manufacturer debuted in 2022. “They even did a campaign with a model who looks like Maddy, shot in a set that seems to be like Samantha’s closet.”
Blumarine detailed the merchandise for sale on the internet as its “Euphoria T-Shirt.”
Bivens casts a large internet when constructing out her characters’ wardrobes. She sources from costume and vintage suppliers, designers and vogue residences and normally borrows parts from good friends, this sort of as the outfit Rue (Zendaya) wears to an end-of-summer months get together in the show’s pilot episode.
And she says she usually finds inspiration from people in the authentic globe.
“Some of the greatest tips that I worked into the costumes came from serious folks that I noticed though I was out buying or walking all over in New York or Los Angeles,” Bivens defined.
This procedure is the “method way of developing a closet, which is how individuals build their closets in serious life,” she wrote in the book. “You do not get every thing from the similar location, and you build it more than time.”
In “Euphoria,” apparel are far more plot gadgets and psychological profiles than they are props. Setting the parameters for the psychology of just about every character “has so a great deal to do with currently being able to … sit with the people in your head and believe by means of each and every scene and what their drive is,” Bivens claimed.
Viewers very first fulfill Jules (Hunter Schafer), a trans character, soon after she has just moved to East Highland, the fictional California city in which “Euphoria” is set, at the get started of year 1. Embodying the youthful optimism that will come with a clean commence, Jules wishes to “conquer femininity” — as she states in the show’s seventh episode — and attraction to the male gaze by dressing as, according to Bivens, “her possess avatar of a cisgender teenage female.” Conveying this is a wardrobe of vivid pastels and tennis skirts, embellished with aspects of anime and fantasy.
As the pains of like and trauma leave her progressively disillusioned, and as she realizes there are other approaches to explore her gender identification, Jules slips into a a little bit muted, darker and extra androgynous wardrobe amongst the show’s very first and next seasons.
“These nonverbal cues — you can frequently refine them as you’re operating by means of the spectacular and emotional arcs of the character,” Bivens mentioned.
Passionate struggles also effect Maddy’s aesthetic. Whilst it starts with colorful matching sets and provocative outfits with cutouts, it evolves over time together with her psychological maturation and the breakdown of her partnership.
For the appear Maddy wears to a winter season official dance at the stop of period one particular (pictured higher than), Bivens went darkish to depict equally her “don’t-treatment attitude” and grief in excess of her separation, channeling Rose McGowan’s notorious “naked dress” from the 1998 VMAs crimson carpet, she mentioned.
(In the meantime, for Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), a character whose partnership with Maddy’s ex blossoms in time two, Bivens’ costume possibilities mirror an appropriation of Maddy’s previous type in trying to find his acceptance.)
And though Kat (Barbie Ferreira) finds self-confidence in her body and sexuality, she trades retro glasses and collared shirts for overall body-conscious BDSM-influenced pieces, match with red and black harnesses, fishnet tights and corsets.
In the course of teen many years, young individuals are exploring who they are, Bivens said. “This is a exclusive time exactly where you get to experiment. You get to enjoy. Maintaining with that spirit was truly vital to me.”
But for the father-son figures Cal and Nate Jacobs (Eric Dane and Jacob Elordi, respectively), who battle with concepts of sexuality and masculinity, there is no pondering outdoors the box. The book’s essay “Bound: Normcore as Vogue Bondage,” by journalist William Van Meter, highlights how a rotation of black, navy, white and brown clothes — staples at any menswear keep — training self-denial, and the command they require to compensate for how conflicted they truly feel.
“To be able to use restraint in imaginative choices and to fully grasp when a character requires to be … more pedestrian and not always be grabbing the audience’s awareness with the way they glance is equally as pertinent as developing costumes that are remarkable,” Bivens mentioned.
Bivens usually takes inspiration from the show’s actors, utilizing some of their individual things and activities as parts of their characters’ wardrobes.
“For the nature of the subject issue and tale, it seemed only pure to me, at periods, to be curious about what an actor needed to convey in collaborating with me for the costumes,” Bivens claimed. “It’s so important, as a costume designer, to hear to your actors and to answer to any notes they give … (They) produced me far better all the time.”
In her to start with conference with Zendaya, she realized the star stored all her late grandfather’s clothing in memory of him, in accordance to the ebook.
“We talked about how a garment that came from Rue’s (late) father could be like a stability blanket for her,” Bivens wrote. This discussion led to what viewers know as Rue’s burgundy hoodie, which she wears in scenes through each seasons — while the detail that it had belonged to her father isn’t uncovered right up until the time just one finale.
The lavender REI prolonged-sleeve top rated worn by Jules (underneath a crushed velvet Eckhaus Latta tank) in a scene from the show’s 3rd episode, in the meantime, is one Schafer herself introduced or wore to one of her 1st fittings. Schafer, a trans woman, also brought the Gogo Graham gown Jules wears in the time two finale to a fitting — Bivens chose to use it, she wrote, to emphasize the perform of a trans designer.
Bivens has not nevertheless read through the scripts for period 3, which she said will premiere in 2024. But she informed CNN she hopes to be getting on a a lot more substantial inventive part in the show’s progress shifting ahead, and has pitched herself turning into a coproducer.
“I have other aspirations beyond just the costumes. I’d like to direct,” Bivens said. “I’d actually love to be ready to nonetheless be actively involved with the present but uncover a new way forward so that I’m equipped to delegate extra.”
She has been told there will be about a 5-12 months time jump among the next and third seasons — with the caveat that creator Levinson is “always strengthening on his thoughts.”
“It’s quite important to Sam that we really don’t repeat ourselves,” Bivens explained. “My hope is that the viewers will be fired up to find out a thing new in obtaining out exactly where the people are now and how their type has developed and altered. Which is heading to be pleasurable for me to figure out.”
“Euphoria Fashion” by Heidi Bivens is offered now.