Longtime Ridley Scott collaborator Janty Yates, and more recent collaborator David Crossman, designed the costumes for Gladiator II. They are nominated for an Academy Award this year. Janty previously won Best Costume for her work on the first Gladiator film in 2000. Will she do it again this year?
With a village of costume professionals from cutters, leather workers, metal workers, jewellers and embroiderers, everything was made from scratch for this film. Different pieces of costumes were made in different parts of the world as there was so much to do for the crowds. There were people working in England, New Zealand (at Weta workshop) and Budapest to get it all done so that they could break it down in Morocco and fit it before going to camera.
Crossman, who specializes in military wear, made 150 different Gladiator costumes. Approximately 2,00 costumes were made in total.
You can see the wealth gap at the start of the movie between the warriors of the city of Numidia in very bare protective gear and the might of Rome with their opulent armour. Lucius (Paul Mescal) is introduced to us wearing hand woven garments in Numidia and basic armour made from pieces of animal skin.
He then gets Gladiatorial Cuirass (breastplate) in Rome. Ridley wanted to make his first armour black, but Crossman convinced him to leave the black until the end so that he has an arc. They made his skirts shorter (to Ridley’s chagrin) than the first Gladiator film because they would have been shorter in reality and they wanted to show off his legs. On top of the skirt you have the protective strips of leather called pteruges.
They dressed peasants as well as middle and upper class residents, keeping it in line with the first Gladiator but adding more opulence this time around.
They dressed Macrinus (Denzel Washington) in darker, less ornate outfits when he’s in the suburbs at the beginning of the movie. He’s wearing various layers including animal skins and big jewelry when he arrives to Rome.
He started to wear simpler outfits towards the end of the film but with lots of layered gold jewellery. He gets progressively more ostentatious with his displays of wealth.
Prompted by Ridley, Yates looked to “the art of Orientalism,” including paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. “They had these great big sweeping togas. They had turbans,” Yates shared. “Denzel and Ridley decided no turbans, which I was sad about. But I understood because Denzel has got so much power in his face and his whole head. I was delighted he wore earrings, because I never thought he would.”- GQ
General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) wore white parade armour and a cloak decorated in the embroidery of a general on his return to Rome after conquering Numidia. He also wore a black armour with a medusa emblem during battle.
Apparently, Ridley Scott referenced Sid Vicious and Jonny Rotten for the emperors! The brothers were played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Janty draped vintage embroidered fabrics on them and the hair and makeup team did the rest of the work creating a somewhat punk-inspired look! “We used beautiful early 20th-century saris and encrusted them in jewelry”- https://www.motionpictures.org/2024/12/gladiator-ii-costume-designers-janty-yates-and-david-crossman-on-lunatic-emperors-blood-splattered-warriors/
She sourced the fabrics from Rome and Prato in Italy and the Marché Aux Puces flea market in Paris, while her assistant Melissa Moritz handled the dramatic draping.
The exaggerated colours are not strictly historical as dyes were very expensive and people would have worn more muted colours in reality. But as Ridley always says, he is not making a documentary.
Connie Nielson, who plays Lucilla, Lucius’ mother, returned for the second film and appeared in an opulent array of beautiful, fully accessorized stolas. She wears white and gold, complimenting the white and gold outfit her husband Acacius wears.
She and her co-stars wore many “Roman Revival” red carpet looks on the press tour for the film and we are already starting to see the influence in fashion with draping and twisting coming to the fore this year, as well as leather and metallics.
In Sydney wearing Stella McCartney
At the London Premiere wearing Del Core
Congratulations to Janty and David on another successful collaboration following Napoleon the previous year. Best of luck for March 2nd!