Malgosia Turzanska received her first Academy Award nomination this year for her work on Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. As a matter of interest, she also costume designed another Best Picture nominee this year- Train Dreams.
Hamnet is an historical fiction about how William Shakespeare was inspired to write his play Hamlet after the death of his son. It follows the grief of him and his wife Agnes.
Agnes is a healer who is deeply connected to nature. Turzanska was inspired by how alive and explosive her character is, and so emerged this vision of a beating heart and blood pulsating in her veins- this inspired the colour palette of red and orange. Director Chloe Zhao also said that she wanted Agnes' colour to be red because it is the colour of the root chakra, which is associated with the earth element. As time passes and she marries and has children, her colours change to more of a rust (blood drying) as her vibrancy is waning a little bit. After her son’s death, her colours evolve to purples, greys and browns like a bruise or a scab, as the colour has drained out of her. By the end, it changes again as life flows back in. Turzanska and her team did a lot of testing with different plant dyes to get the colours correct. Agnes wears linen, wool and leather with little ornamentation as she is very practical. The use of bark cloth in her costumes symbolize her affinity with nature.
Will’s family were given a very dark colour palette to contrast with Agnes when she first visits their home, making her appear very out of place. Will himself was put in blues and greens to align him with the river. “Whether he’s swimming or standing on the bank, Will is aligned with the water.” Similarly to Agnes, “As the story progresses, however, his clothing is increasingly drained of colour and vibrancy.” Again, Zhao had a spiritual reason for wanting Will to be represented by blue. Blue is associated with the throat chakra which governs creativity and self expression.
As will’s father is abusive, the designer incorporated the idea of protective padding into his costumes by using quilting and cushioning.
Pinking and slashing of garments was common in this era. Early in the film, Will's slashes (on laser cut leather) are not very prominent but they enlarge and become more pronounced as the story progresses and his life becomes more complicated. There’s almost more negative space than positive space by the end.
Harper’s Bazaar commented that “The clothes are a beautiful reflection of not only historically accurate Elizabethan dress but also how we, as a 21st-century audience, view Elizabethan costume onscreen. A pitch-perfect carbon copy of the 16th Century this is not.”
Turzanska used Ruth Goodman’s book “How To Be A Tudor” in her research for the Elizabethan-set film. She also referred to the book “Citizen Portrait”, which includes portraits of regular people from the period.
For the children’s clothing, she told Focus Features that “the paintings of Sebastiaen Vrancx were helpful because he captured both adults and children in very dynamic poses. They are falling down and tumbling and you see various layers of clothing—a shirt that is untucked or pants that are hiked up.”
For the Globe players (the actors), Turzanska revealed that “In Shakespeare’s time, players dressed to mirror the people in the audience so the audience could literally see themselves in the stories. But for a modern audience, that didn’t translate, so I decided to make their costumes in Elizabethan shapes, but we used raw linen and painted them with latex treatments—which definitely wasn’t period-correct! It gave them this contemporary texture.” They rented from costume houses like Cosprop for these players.
The textures, colours and shapes utilized in the costumes of this film bring so much life to the screen, and translate such important information to the viewer. Well done to Turzanska and the entire costume team that worked on this film, and best of luck at the Academy Awards next week!