Miyako Bellizzi received her first Academy Award nomination this year for her work on Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme. The film is set in the early 1950s in New York and follows Marty on his quest for greatness.
Belizzi told W Mag that they made thousands of costumes from scratch because of the amount of doubles they needed for all the action which included shoot-outs, stabbings, car chases and sweaty table tennis matches. Most of the background performers costumes were sourced.
One resource she tapped into in her research was footage of Manhattan’s Lower East Side from 1955 shot by Brooklyn native Ken Jacobs. She also looked at photography by Ruth Orkin and Robert Frank.
Belizzi’s challenge was to project Marty’s aspirations through his clothes while maintaining his social status during the period. “It’s almost like he’s a kid dressing up in men’s clothes. The dress-for-the-job-you-want kind of thing. It feels aspirational. He dressed for the man he thought he was going to become.” (mr.porter). She put Timothée Chalamet in boxy Zoot-style double breasted suits with high cinched-waist single-pleat trousers. He’s still wearing clothes from the late 40s because he wasn’t rich.
Belizzi said of his shirts that “forties collars are kind of like seventies collars- they’re really big and pointy.” (The New Yorker). These mostly appeared in subtle striped patterns.
As for the ping pong uniform, it consists of trousers and a sweatshirt won over a white tank top. She noted that one of the hardest things to get right was the shape of his white tank tops! She didn’t want it to look modern.
Then there are the boleros at the bowling alley. And the multitude of ping-pong players from 16 different countries around the world. “I tried to make them all different in terms of shapes,” Bellizzi says. “From the more European ones for Hungary and Germany to Marty’s American ones, to the East Asian countries, to Brazil and Argentina. There’s one shot when you see a picture of all these teams together – it’s maybe one second of the movie, but it took me so long to bring to life.” (MrPorter)
Gwyneth Paltrow’s role as former silent film star Kay Stone exists in contrast to everyone else in the films’ world, as she strives to find relevance in a new era. Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly were inspirations for her wardrobe as well as the emergence of designers like Dior, Givenchy, and Balenciaga. “I wanted to present her as regal, chic, sophisticated,” Bellizzi says. She also wanted her to have a fur coat moment without drawing comparisons to Paltrow’s iconic character in The Royal Tenenbaums! Some of the clothes Paltrow wears in the movie are actually Belizzi’s own.
“She starts in this grayscale world of black and whites,” Bellizzi says. Meeting Marty is a revelation, and his lust for life (and for her) inspires a change. “It’s in the red dress she’s wearing in Central Park with Marty where she admits, ‘I hate my relationship.’” (WMag). As a woman of the 1950s in an unhappy marriage, her confinement was also shown through her clothes.
For the film’s Tokyo scenes, Belizzi referenced her own family photos as they came from Japan to America after WWII. This added a personal touch to the whole affair.
We styled some looks from our collection based on Bellizzi's designs for Marty, which Kristine explains in the video below:
Congratulations to Bellizzi and her team. Wishing them the best of luck this weekend at the Oscars!