Summer 2022 is shaping up to be the season of biopics, with upcoming films featuring the stories of celebrities such as Madonna, Bob Dylan, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe. Since biographical motion pictures retell the stories of real-life people, historical accuracy (especially when it comes to costume design) is essential for these films. The newest film in the line of biopics, Elvis (2022), directed by Baz Luhrmann, is set to release on June 24. To celebrate the film’s release, we’re taking a look at the brilliant costume designer behind the film, Catherine Martin.
Martin’s background.
Catherine Martin has always had a passion for costume design. She graduated from multiple art schools including the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the National Art School, and the Sydney College of Arts. In an interview with Forbes, Martin explained, “I realized that I enjoyed the intellectual kind of challenge that fashion brings, the rigor of it all, the storytelling aspect, and the collaborative aspect.” Elvis isn’t her first experience with costume designing for a major Hollywood film. In the past, Martin has worked on films such as Romeo and Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge! (2001), and even The Great Gatsby (2013). She’s won 4 Oscars, 5 BAFTAs, a Tony Award, and was one of Glamour Magazine’s 2013 Women of the Year. Considering that most of the films she’s worked on in the past have dealt with historical-esque looks, Martin was more than qualified to capture the 1950s style of Elvis.
Exploring 1950-70s fashion for Elvis
Catherine Martin has always had a passion for costume design. She graduated from multiple art schools including the National Institute of Dramatic Art, the National Art School, and the Sydney College of Arts. In an interview with Forbes, Martin explained, “I realized that I enjoyed the intellectual kind of challenge that fashion brings, the rigor of it all, the storytelling aspect, and the collaborative aspect.” Elvis isn’t her first experience with costume designing for a major Hollywood film. In the past, Martin has worked on films such as Romeo and Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge! (2001), and even The Great Gatsby (2013). She’s won 4 Oscars, 5 BAFTAs, a Tony Award, and was one of Glamour Magazine’s 2013 Women of the Year. Considering that most of the films she’s worked on in the past have dealt with historical-esque looks, Martin was more than qualified to capture the 1950s style of Elvis.
Constructing the costumes.
In a Harper’s Bazaar interview, Martin explained how Austin Butler, who portrays Elvis, had over 90 different costumes, with an additional 9,000 costumes made for the film’s extras. She prided herself on the fact that most of the costumes for Elvis were pulled together in her home country of Australia. For the character costumes, especially Priscilla’s costumes, Martin stressed how it was important to her to not just perfectly recreate the actual outfits–a goal that she expressed when collaborating with Prada and Miu Miu, “It also allowed us to not slavishly copy the clothes and not do them justice—but kind of find something to parallel the elevation of Priscilla’s real clothes.”
Source: Elvis (2022) Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Thoughts after seeing the film.
As of writing this post, I have just returned from a viewing of Elvis. In terms of the technical aspects behind the film, in true Luhrmann-Martin fashion–it’s visually spectacular. The extravagant but dreamlike state that is present in the film reminded me so much of Luhrmann and Martin’s previous work on Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. Martin outdid herself with this film, every costume seen on screen was perfectly executed and I would be shocked if there wasn’t another Oscar nomination in her future. It’s a must-see film for anyone who has an interest in costume design.
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