Bal Harbour

BAL HARBOUR 63 BALHARBOURSHOPS.COM P H OTO G R A P H Y: S I LV E R S C R E E N CO L L E C T I O N/G E T T Y I M AG E S ( T H E WO R L D O F H E N RY O R I E N T ); © 2 0 23 WA R N E R B R O S . E N T E R TA I N M E N T I N C . A L L R I G H T S R E S E RV E D/AT S U S H I N I S H I J I M A ( B A R B I E); C I N E M AT I C / A L A MY S TO C K P H OTO (S O P H I E 'S C H O I C E) is very wrong, not to mention that there's egg on it, that's what I like. Something wrong that you notice on close examination. What I like is what makes me a different person then, say, Gabriella Pescucci, a designer I admire enormously. Did I read that you purchased clothing off someone on the street to use in a film? How the hell would I do that? Actually, I did a picture with Jason Statham [Safe] in Philadelphia and I had seen a painter in a pair of very sexy, white cotton cargo pants, like $8 carpenter pants. I said to this guy who was driving me, "Would you go ask if I can buy him a fresh pair of trousers and please have those old ones?" It takes so long to explain that to somebody! But it happened, and it was very successful. For Midnight Cowboy, I took the raincoat off a delivery guy in his sixties who worked for Louis Gladstone, a [now-defunct] fabric house in Manhattan. I said, "Please give me that raincoat and I'll buy you a new beautiful one!" And I used that black dirty coat on Dustin Hoffman. What costume moments are you particularly proud of? Dustin as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. Ratso lived on 42nd Street in the 1960s, so I actually took a hotel room there between 8th and 9th [Avenues] so I could fit background people to look real. I purchased a purple suit on 42nd Street for $49 and put it in green dye because I felt the purple was too perfect. It turned out to be this amazing, wonderful, memorable color. I saw Marcello Mastroianni on various marquees and thought, "If Ratso's a short, unattractive, crippled Italian kid who sleeps on pool tables and theater seats, he fantasizes looking like Marcello, usually in a white suit." So I saw tables in front of the Port Authority with white poly- ester cha-cha-cha pants for sale with a very short rise and narrow leg. They couldn't be worse! Since they were lying outside, there was this tan dirt line at the crease down the front. Being stupid, I bought only one pair. Then quite by luck, the luck of my career, I saw a limo cruising west on 42nd Street one evening. It slowed down and an arm came out and threw a rented prom jacket that had been thrown up on into a garbage can. There you are! That plus the trousers made a world-changing costume! I'd love to have one more chance to work with Dustin. He's one of those wonderful actors, who I hope gets as many accolades as he deserves. Do you partner with specific tailors and artisans? You want somebody that nobody else knows about. I first heard about Henry Stewart, a tailor on 57th Street who had just come over from London....Then I worked with Leonard Logsdail, who is making clothes for me now. As a young woman, I worked for [cos- tume designer] Irene Sharaff, and she would not tell me where she got her black silk chiffon or anything I considered extraordinary. Many people say, "Oh, it's just black chiffon." They don't know whether it's silk or polyester. It matters to me! If I find somebody who makes white kid gloves better than anybody else, I want to know that person. I had a blue caftan hand-painted by Jeff Fender for Bette Midler to wear in the [2013 Broadway] show I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers. It was absolutely beautiful. And he is no longer a secret. And Meryl wore that lovely caftan in The Post. I get a lot of puff over caftans. A review in the New Yorker called out that caftan. I mean, The Post is a very in-depth, interesting piece. You don't want to look at caftans. If you're looking at the costume, the costume designer did not do it right. As a designer, you don't want that, ever. It should just look like part of the character. Other Meryl moments? Meryl had played a glorious blonde in Sophie's Choice, but Karen Silkwood had brown hair, so she dyed her hair at the Holiday Inn the night before shooting. I put her in a very tough above-the-knee jean skirt with a jean jacket and rotten, cheap cowboy boots. And I had her leaning against a Volkswagen in the parking lot when Mike [Nichols] came to work that first day of shooting. He walked right past Meryl. He had no idea who she was. I was very pleased. Any other films in the works? I'm interested in doing something, but I am 92, and my days of jumping on and off the backs of trucks on location are over. Can you share any fun anecdotes from your first film, The World of Henry Orient? Tippy Walker played Val, whose parents were out of the country a lot and she was at home with the housekeeper, so she wore her mother's mink coat to school. That coat was purchased at the same place I purchased Brenda Vaccaro's red fox coat for Midnight Cowboy—off the back of a car in a parking lot run by longshoremen. I did another movie with Peter Sellers, Murder by Death in 1976, and all the costumes were designed and made to order. I had a purple look for him and a purple evening dress for one of the women. The producer, Ray Stark, called me and said, "By the way, Peter will not appear on any stage where there is the color purple." I had spent a lot of time and a lot of money making these two items that had to be thrown out! " IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE COSTUME, THE DESIGNER DID NOT DO IT RIGHT. THE COSTUME SHOULD JUST LOOK LIKE PART OF THE CHARACTER. " FROM TOP: Margot Robbie in Barbie, 2023; Peter MacNicol, Meryl Streep, and Kevin Kline in Sophie's Choice, 1982; Peter Sellers in The World of Henry Orient, 1964, all in costumes designed by Roth.

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