What You Hear if You Listen to the Costumes in ‘A Complete Unknown'

New York Times

25-02-2025

Playing Bob Dylan in 'A Complete Unknown,' Timothée Chalamet had 67 costume changes. If you didn't notice, then as the costume designer on the film, I did my job: A mark of success in costume design is your work's becoming invisible. Clothes help tell the story. But they should not become the story.
For any film, the early conversations I have with the director are rarely about the clothes themselves and more about the world we are creating. Ultimately it is the immersive experience, when all the elements come together, that is the goal — to transport the audience to a time and place. Costumes are not just there for show or to be looked at. They are to be heard more than seen. And what they're saying develops the character, sets a tone, creates a feeling or underscores an emotion.
I learned from working with Madonna for 22 years not to be too focused on what those in the audience will find appealing — that we shouldn't even be thinking about them, actually — but instead to be confident about our creative choices. I designed the costumes for six of her tours, several album covers, editorial shoots, more than 15 videos, a play in London's West End and a film she directed. Costuming for her was about what she wanted to express and not necessarily how she wanted to be seen.
That's the philosophy I brought to the costume design of 'A Complete Unknown.' It involved not just showing where we were, but also who Bob Dylan was at any given moment, how confident he was, his ingenuity, the resources he had, what his influences were, who he was becoming as an artist.
I was also thinking about how I could assist the work of the actors — help them get there, almost like giving them beam-me-up suits. I believe my job is to help ground actors in their characters, to find that part of themselves physically through the way a costume feels. I think we can all relate to this — if we walk out the door to meet someone and we feel like we're wearing the wrong shoes, we turn around and change them. Clothes make us feel a certain way.
Here's how they were working in 'A Complete Unknown':
The Denim
The evolution we see in the film is of a young man finding his voice as an artist. The denim Bob Dylan wears is a physical embodiment of that progression, as well as the changing times — the textile tells the story of the '60s.
My favorite detail is one you'd have to know to look for. I learned about it from Suze Rotolo's book, 'A Freewheelin' Time,' about her relationship with Mr. Dylan. Ms. Rotolo writes that the Levi's 501 jeans he was wearing in '63 and '64 needed to fit over his cowboy boots. They were bunching up, so she inserted a denim patch on the legs to allow them to lie over the boots. My friends at Levi's told me that was probably the first boot cut jean ever made. I love this very personal and D.I.Y. detail, which also represented the care in the relationship between the two.
Already, denim had changed significantly from what it was at the beginning of the decade, when it was relegated to work wear or recreation. In 1961, Mr. Dylan was wearing dungarees and work boots. That was the workingman style he had adopted by age 19 that was in line with the proletarian look of his hero, Woody Guthrie.
Over the decade, it became more popular to wear denim in places where it wasn't socially acceptable before. Denim would become a tribal signifier for young people, an act of rebellion, a departure from their parents' generation.
Early in the film, Mr. Chalamet is wearing jeans in the recording session at Columbia Records, where everyone else is wearing a suit. You really see that generational difference.
In the middle of the film, as Mr. Dylan was becoming known, gaining confidence and writing his own songs, he was developing his own style — still wearing denim but not work pants. His jeans had a slimmer silhouette — hence the need for the patch — that he paired with suede jackets, a look encapsulated on the cover of the album 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.'
The third beat that we created visually was in 1965 when Mr. Dylan's look started to mirror the electric rock 'n' roll music he was making. The '65 Bob Dylan, I'd learned through my research, had gone to England, and he adopted that early-'60s mod look. You see it echoed in his tabbed shirts. His hair's longer, his silhouette's thinner. He clearly had some money in his pocket and looked like he had some clothes made. He was developing his identity — and the clothes underscore that. For those later scenes, we dressed Mr. Chalamet in a much slimmer-cut, stovepipe jean. According to Levi's, the style Mr. Dylan was wearing in those days was called the 'Super Slims.' Levi's recreated those for us.
The Dress
We did a lot of historical research and recreated specific outfits of Mr. Dylan's because we needed to have that authenticity — for example when he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, recorded at Columbia or did the photo shoot for 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' album cover. But in between those moments, we were free to improvise, and sometimes that allows you to get even closer to a particular truth.
What turned out to be the most challenging costume for me in this film was what Elle Fanning wore as Sylvie (based on Ms. Rotolo) at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Her character has gotten back together with Mr. Dylan, but when she sees what's happening between him and Joan Baez onstage, she has an emotional reaction and leaves. I wanted to underscore the emotion of the scene and help Ms. Fanning (who doesn't need my help!); I wanted to give her a sense of vulnerability there.
Until that point, I had kept her character in pants because I wanted to show that she was a modern, confident young woman. Ms. Rotolo was an activist and an artist, and had her own full life. I didn't want to feminize her too much. For the Newport scene, though, I wanted her in a dress. I knew she'd be moving through the crowd, so I wanted what she was wearing to move, too, and I wanted to give Ms. Fanning a tool to support the heartbreak of that scene.
People wore a lot of prints in the '60s, but I struggled to find one that felt right. I didn't want something too graphic or bold or overly romantic. I ultimately found a print that Marimekko had reissued from that era. I liked that it was an ombré color wash, like a Rothko painting, so it had that same emotional quality that seemed perfect for the scene.
The Polka-Dot Shirt
For me, costuming works best when it's an intimate collaboration with the actors, as it was on 'A Complete Unknown.' We are the people in filmmaking whose first words to an actor are: 'Nice to meet you. Please take your clothes off.'
Working closely with Mr. Chalamet is what gave us that scene where he's wearing a green polka-dot shirt.
When he puts it on, it's more of a traditional costume moment because it is so jarring, a real departure from his folk persona. I'd seen a photograph of Mr. Dylan wearing a green polka-dot shirt at the soundcheck before his Newport performance, but we weren't doing that scene in the movie. Still, I couldn't let the idea of the shirt go. The director, Jim Mangold, wasn't sold on using it; he thought it was too loud. I loved the shirt because it's a glimpse of what Mr. Dylan was becoming. In 1966, which is after our film, his style became completely mod and vibrant — he was wearing polka-dot shirts and striped suits. I wanted to echo his departure from being a solo folk musician to having a band and playing rock 'n' roll.
We ended up recreating the shirt because historical photographs show Mr. Dylan's bandmate, Al Kooper, wearing it at the Newport performance.
Mr. Chalamet liked the shirt, too. During rehearsal for the scene where Pete Seeger comes to Mr. Dylan's hotel room in Newport, Mr. Chalamet called me to the set. He thought the scene would be the perfect moment for him to wear the shirt. And when he does put it on, he transforms the energy of that scene, almost making it comical. He's in his boxer shorts and that clown shirt, and Mr. Seeger is telling a ridiculous story. This is the joy of working with an actor who understands the storytelling process.