In ‘The Gilded Age’, costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone creates luscious looks that represent the excitement and challenges of 1880s-era New York. In ‘Behind The Seams’ she explains her use of color, structure, and fabric to explore the 'Old vs. New Money’ tension at the time and how it informed characters’ fashion choices.
Variety Artisans presented by HBO.
Variety Artisans presented by HBO.
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00:00Hi, my name is Kasia Wojcicka-Maimona, I'm the costume designer of the Gilded Age.
00:04We are at 268 Norman Avenue in Greenpoint, where this amazing studio exists,
00:12it's the studio of the Gilded Age.
00:14And I'll give you a small tour of the areas of the studio.
00:19This is the design part of the Gilded Age and that's where things materialize.
00:24There is a tailoring section where most of the alterations happen,
00:29most of the incredibly complicated builds happen.
00:33This is where stocks for our background live.
00:37This is a section with female dresses.
00:39This is where we're developing and collecting all the fabrics necessary for our design process.
00:45This is a collection of hats, this is a small collection of hats that we are using on our backgrounds,
00:50because a lot of our trucks have just left for Troy and that's where the fittings will start in a few weeks.
00:59Gilded Age
01:06You are the future, Mrs. Russell, and if you are the future, then they must be the past.
01:10Well, things move faster nowadays.
01:12The Gilded Age is this battle between the new money, represented by Bertha and George and their family,
01:21and the old guard, represented by Mrs. Astor and Agnes and Ada.
01:26And it is an incredibly fun material to explore, because diving into the deep history of New York was really fantastic.
01:34Early on, after the first read of the material, we met with Michael Engler,
01:40and what became clear is that it was extraordinarily important to create the excitement of the period.
01:47I think that that's where we discovered that some of the historical pieces resonate with us and some of them don't.
01:54So if we were just faithful to the history, I think we would have a very different show.
01:59And I think that that created this lens of what is exciting and what is not exciting.
02:05What I was discovering in that period, that there was this incredible level of asymmetry, organic draping,
02:11extraordinary combinations of colors, there was the introduction of artificial dyes and the color was exploding.
02:19There's a picture of this asymmetric dress. It's an incredibly complicated but at the same time fascinating dress,
02:26which comes from a little bit later period, but it looks so modern.
02:30And a lot of the times I'm being asked if I modernize it too much.
02:34I was like, it's all there. You just have to pull it out and look for it.
02:40Those are sketches and color plates from that period with the color combinations,
02:45which are pretty shocking, that brown with the turquoise. This is pretty much what I used on Peggy.
02:50I've seen those color combinations in that period. It's a pretty unusual combination.
02:55Now you need to know we only receive the old people in this house, not the new, never the new.
03:03What's the difference?
03:06The big distinction between the old money and new money, it's almost like comparing it to the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum.
03:13We both live at the same time. It's a celebration of art, but it's completely different approaches.
03:19And of course, it's driven by the story. Bertha is continuously trying to belong to the old money.
03:25At the same time, she breaks the rules left and right.
03:28She doesn't have the depth of the traditions that the old money has.
03:34So because of that, in a way, she resonates the old money,
03:37but she is representing a completely different language in her household and in the way she dresses herself.
03:44This sort of stunt does not impress the people you want to win over.
03:47Mrs. Morris, this sort of stunt impresses everyone.
03:51We have so many responses to color. Deep red actually does feel like new, but deep burgundy doesn't feel new.
03:57Deep green does not feel new, unless it's combined with a very interesting juxtaposition of colors.
04:04What I discovered in paintings last year was that combination of this vivid yellow, almost green-yellow, combined with mustard.
04:13And I found that just a fascinating combination and kept exploring this color.
04:17It is a bright color, but it's such an exciting color that I felt like it became Bertha's color.
04:24We're eager that all of you, our principal patrons and sponsors,
04:27should be the first to witness what the new Metropolitan Opera will bring to the great city of New York.
04:33I wanted to make sure that Bertha, in the dark interiors of the new Metropolitan Opera that she was building,
04:41that she stands apart, that she looks like the leader of this operation that was happening.
04:47I felt that her being in this combination of this pale, pale dove colors,
04:53with this sharp navy, was just this gorgeous, elegant presence.
04:59And we knew that she was going to be doing a walkthrough, and this became a little bit like wings.
05:04And I think it was just such a powerful moment for her in this storyline of Bertha in charge of this new creation.
05:14And I felt that it was kind of inspired by this moment of this.
05:19She's a bird. She's flying. She's doing whatever she wants.
05:22She's creating a Metropolitan Opera, and she looks deadly elegant and very sophisticated
05:27and carries it with this incredible confidence.
05:30She's right next to Enid. Enid is part of the tour in this pink.
05:35And I felt it was a fun combination of the two of them competing with each other,
05:39because Enid is also standing apart, but in a completely different way.
05:43She's in this pale pinks that also look very sophisticated.
05:48It's just a different vocabulary that both of the ladies are trying to reinstate their powers.
05:54But I felt like Bertha has the biggest head, has the most elegant and lightest presence in that particular scene.
06:03Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Winterton, would you mind holding that pose for just a second
06:07while our artist makes a sketch for the daily graphic?
06:10Not me. I support the Academy.
06:14We also, because there are so many characters and each one of them has their own specific palette,
06:19we know that Agnes and Marianne have very specific colors.
06:23Agnes is the deep wine, deep burgundy, the deep jewel tones.
06:28Ada is mustard. We were calling her colors like the colors of the fall,
06:33those beautiful burning colors of the fall.
06:36For Marianne, there was the pale yellows and pale greens and colors of somewhat of innocence
06:43and somebody who comes from the country, who comes from the meadows,
06:45who is not schooled by the society of what color range is.
06:49I tried to very much portray this young lady who comes from a different world of aesthetics than the city aesthetics.
06:59For Peggy, there was a very interesting language of the black elite
07:04that was as glamorous and fashion-forward as the worlds of Agnes or Bertha.
07:14I decided to explore color a little bit more because there was very little information color-wise of what was the black elite.
07:23But we also knew that I needed to create this world that was very separate from all the other worlds for the characters.
07:30I chose a whole bunch of historical dresses very much inspired by a few photographs of the black elite from that period.
07:38As I say, a lot of the times a photograph can unlock the whole approach to the character.
07:43There were a few photographs that were extremely inspirational for Peggy and her parents.
07:49I think that was those beautiful photographs of ladies in gorgeous dresses with beautiful asymmetrical draping.
07:58That's how Peggy's character was born.
08:00I used that idea of asymmetry and the color combination very much was driven by the inspiration from the early photographs.
08:10Enid was a very fun character to portray visually.
08:16We know this is a story of a former ladies' maid of Bertha.
08:20As a former maid, she was also very much appreciated for her sense of fashion.
08:26She knew the rules of the society and she informed Bertha about a bunch of those rules.
08:31Going forward, knowing that she actually is now becoming a lady of the society, she had to be presented as Bertha's equal.
08:41What?
08:42Finding that language for her was a really interesting journey because I felt that she needs to be, on one hand, an equal.
08:50On the other hand, she has to understand the newest of the fashions.
08:53At the same time, her respect for the old money because she's marrying a man of the old money.
08:59Her outfits are going to be more conservative than Bertha's.
09:02They are not going to be as outrageously provocative as Bertha sometimes is by default.
09:07She's going to stay more in the framework of a very conservative approach.
09:11At the same time, I moved her and her color palette very much towards Bertha.
09:17She's a combination of those two worlds.
09:19I think that I wanted also to show her intelligence and sophistication in a fashion sense and blending of those worlds.
09:27It was inventing these very strict colors and playing around with a lot of elements that belonged to the old guard and use them in it.
09:43This is Joshua Winterton.
09:45In it, when she walks into Bertha's house, which causes a giant shock between all the servants because they see the former maid being presented as lady of society.
09:58I chose on purpose this lavender, which is a very soft color because we know what In It has been plotting and cooking up was nothing but soft.
10:08But she presents herself in the softness of lavenders and pinks and pale grays.
10:14I think we were actually having so much fun creating this softness of pastel colors for her because it was the opposite in a way of her plotting and her games.
10:26This moray fabric that is equal to Bertha because that's what Bertha is wearing.
10:30She matches it.
10:31She's using the most beautiful lace that she could find in France.
10:37She's very much presenting with her outfit how much she understands the world scene of fashion versus just the New York scene of fashion.
10:47Her designs are as inspired by French fashions as Bertha's designs are.
10:53She travels also a lot to London.
10:56I wanted to introduce this influence of British fashions, which are a little bit more controlled and more conservative.
11:04In It's very much a blend between conservative world presented in the newest possible fashion fresh from London and Paris.
11:15You all should know each other. You have so much in common.
11:18I'm sure, but for now we must continue in Mr. McAllister's wake.
11:24Hats were such a huge part of women's outfits.
11:28In the first season, I designed a bunch of hats that were for our modern eye.
11:33They were quite big and quite elaborate.
11:36And by the second season, I felt that we need to go much bigger and much bolder because that's really what it was in that period.
11:44The hats were enormous.
11:45And I think the first hat that I designed for character Maud was so enormous that she couldn't walk through the frame of the doors and did not fit in the frame of the camera.
11:56So we decided we need to pull back a little bit.
11:58But still, as the material called for it, we went pretty big with the hats, especially for Easter.
12:04For special occasions, the hats just exploded. They were enormous.
12:08We should go. We mustn't keep the rector all to ourselves.
12:12Happy Easter.
12:14It was quite incredible to see all those dresses on screen.
12:17We were watching the first episode of The Gilded Age of the second season with pretty much our entire team at my house.
12:23And we were screaming.
12:25It is that moment when you look at it and you're like, how on earth did we pull it off?
12:31It is the design team, it's the wardrobe team, it's the tailors, it is the production assistants.
12:38It is this big operation.
12:40I would say about 600 hands that create the outfits.
12:44We always say we have the best jobs in the world because we also produce something that really, truly, I think, entertains people.