In the world of costume design, Lindy Hemming is a legend. Her work is arguably unrivalled, something that's evident from what we've seen in the James Bond movies (from Goldeneye to Casino Royale), Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, and both Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984.
With the sequel now available to rent on Premium Video on Demand in the UK, we recently had the opportunity to speak to Lindy about her work on the DC Comics adaptation. We kicked things off by delving into the creation of that iconic Golden Eagle armour, before finding out what sort of changes were made to the classic costume worn by Gal Gadot in Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman sequel.
Hemming also talks to us about creating the eye-catching 1980s costumes for characters like Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), and Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
Needless to say, we want to extend a huge thank you to Lindy for taking the time to talk to us!
With the Golden Eagle armour, what sort of balance was there with taking inspiration from comics like Kingdom Come and any real-life mythological imagery?
I started, of course, looking at Kingdom Come. Because I’m a bit of an old history buff, I looked into pre-Greek armours where there were female warriors. Some of them were buried in Macedonia in their golden armour, with golden carriages and everything. It didn’t seem so weird that she would have a golden armour from very far back in history. Once I started looking at real historical things, I thought they wouldn’t really be appealing to comic book people because they’re too clunky. I needed to look at Wonder Woman’s own armour that she wears normally, and then fashion. I looked at all kinds of people. Dior, they did a golden armour, and Thierry Mugler did as well. McQueen too.
I thought that was more the way to go, and Patty [Jenkins] wanted the armour to have a, not translucent, but really reflective, glowing feeling. The technical challenge, of course, was that it not reflect the crew, lamps, or any of those things [Laughs]. It was quite interesting. We had to work with the people who made the armour; they took my drawings, put them into the 3D printer, drew them up again as 3D drawings, and used a scan of Gal [Gadot]’s body so we could get all the lines where we wanted them. They developed a new fabric which could be made heavier, lighter, softer, or harder, and found a way to give it a deep, glowing, shine. It was a lot of work and six months for that costume ongoing. I like it! [Laughs]
Wonder Woman 1984 Costume Designer Lindy Hemming Confirms Wonder Woman 3 Return
With The Dark Knight Trilogy, we saw the Batsuit undergo some big changes from Batman Begins to The Dark Knight, but was a drastic overhaul to Wonder Woman’s appearance ever considered for this sequel?
Not really! Originally, that classic look was designed by all the different comic book artists, but then Michael Wilkinson, who did Zack Snyder’s film featuring her, did a version of that armour which was really, really good we all thought, and it took the essence of everything in the comics, but made it into a harder armour, and Gal’s got such a great body. So, I suppose you could describe the only things we did to that as changing colours and changing fit. Just small changes, nothing really radical. We didn’t want to. Patty didn’t want to and neither did I. A few stylistic changes, and lots of things in Wonder Woman we made darker and battle hardened because she goes through all the mud and war and because it was a much darker film. In this film, Patty really wanted it to be in very, very, very shiny and colourful to match the 80s, otherwise it would have looked a little bit strangely out of place in that world Patty was wanting to develop. So, not much is the answer!
Pedro Pascal gets some awesome suits as Maxwell Lord; what was your main inspiration for those and were you influenced by Pedro’s personality for what we see on screen?
We were really. So was he. Pedro is a real bouncy personality, but he’s also very, very good actor. He and Kirsten Wiig both came and were so open to what we wanted to do with them. He was open to everything and anything. He didn’t mind how naff or sharp his tailoring was or how bad it was. Of course, we looked into Armani, Calvin Klein, and stuff like that from the period. Also, everybody asks me, 'Did we look at Donald Trump?' and we looked at lots of businessmen of the period, including Donald Trump, but he isn’t modelled on Donald Trump at all as a personality. He’s Pedro’s creation and Patty’s. I think his clothes are really horrible, but they really work with the character and help him. I’d say the same about Kirsten Wiig. She really threw herself into being this bookish, slightly dowdy 80s girl who then slowly transforms into a nasty, punk person. They’re good characters for a costume designer to work with.
Wonder Woman 1984 Costume Designer Lindy Hemming On Outfitting [SPOILER] In The Mid-Credits Scene
How much fun was it picking out those different outfits for Chris Pine in that montage?
[Laughs] Oh, yes. I have to complement my assistant, Nat Turner, who is an 80s baby. A lot of what Chris wore and a lot of work that went into Chris was pushed by Nat who tried to make Chris more out there and have him wear more and more crazy things. It was really fun, and Patty and Chris were just shrieking with laughter when they were trying all those things on.
Wonder Woman 1984 is available to rent on Premium Video on Demand from 13th January.