Intimate Apparel: A Conversation with Nancy Steiner

By Hillary Weston

Interviews—

Aug 31, 2022

Intimate Apparel: A Conversation with Nancy Steiner
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Over the last thirty years, costume designer Nancy Steiner has been behind some of the most iconic sartorial moments in the worlds of film, music, and fashion. Beginning her career in Los Angeles, during the heyday of MTV in the early nineties, Steiner cut her teeth as a designer by styling music videos: she was responsible for the striped midcentury suits worn by the members of Nirvana in their video for “In Bloom” and Gwen Stefani’s vintage polka-dot dress in the video for No Doubt’s breakout single, “Don’t Speak.” Steiner landed her first big break in the film industry when Todd Haynes hired her to design the costumes for his disquieting melodrama Safe (1995). Tasked with assembling a wardrobe for Julianne Moore’s Carol White, Steiner created looks that mirror the character’s downward spiral from well-groomed housewife to a woman ravaged by a mysterious illness. Then, Sofia Coppola brought Steiner on board for her directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides (1999), a film whose costumes now feel integral to our understanding of the director’s visual aesthetic.

Set in 1970s suburban Michigan, The Virgin Suicides allowed Steiner to bring together her talents as a designer and her love for scouring through vintage stores. At the center of Coppola’s melancholic coming-of-age film are the Lisbon sisters, whom Steiner outfits in clothes inspired by fashion trends of the era and imbued with an air of ethereal femininity: crocheted halter tops, linen A-line skirts, flannel nightgowns, and modest prom dresses reminiscent of the vintage label Gunne Sax. Part of what makes Steiner’s work so remarkable is how lived-in and full of personality the girls’ clothing feels, enriching Coppola’s portrait of these young women and their unique inner lives.

Steiner has since left her mark on the projects of other distinctive writers and directors, designing the costumes for films by Wim Wenders, Cameron Crowe, and Yorgos Lanthimos. She also collaborated again with Coppola, on Lost in Translation. In addition, she has turned her efforts to the small screen, outfitting the eccentric characters of cult-favorite television series like Mike White’s Enlightened and, most recently, David Lynch’s eighteen-part sensation Twin Peaks: The Return.

To celebrate our new 4K edition of The Virgin Suicides, I spoke with Steiner about her early influences and her psychological approach to costume design.

I’m curious about what brought you into the fashion world.

I was very into art and fashion as a young girl and was always sketching from what I saw in fashion magazines. I loved drawing the folds and textures in fabric. I didn’t have the money to go to school for fashion, and back then there weren’t costume-design programs for film. I wanted to be a fashion designer, so I went to Los Angeles Trade Technical College for two years and learned the basics of making clothes: the construction, the draping, the patternmaking. While I was going to school, I worked and sometimes made clothes for this punk-rock store in Santa Monica called NaNa, which was the first U.S. distributor of Dr. Martens. I eventually began working as an intern or assistant for some of the stylists I had met through the store. They liked my style, which was influenced by Exene Cervenka from the LA punk band X. I had long, red hair and wore mostly 1940s-style dresses. The first film I worked on was I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), which was a satirical crack-up of Blaxploitation movies.

What influenced your taste as an artist?

I love film, but I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of it by any means. My biggest influences have always been music and art. Those are my loves. When I was growing up, they were always the most important to me. I took drawing classes, painted, and made sculptures. I was always going to a lot of concerts. That was my deal. I was this ’40s girl, but my friends were punks, so I’d go to all those kinds of shows.

I’d love to know more about the LA art scene in the nineties and how your experiences in fashion, music, and film began to intersect.

Music was a huge part of my life and how I met my LA tribe. I knew the members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction from going to shows, and at one point I went out with a guy who lived with Perry Farrell. We all intermixed, and though everyone made different kinds of music and art, we all loved each other’s work. That’s how I started making the costumes for music videos by the Chili Peppers, No Doubt, and Nirvana. It was exciting to be a part of the MTV generation while making music videos for MTV at the same time. One of the music video costume supervisors I had been working with brought me with her on a new project, which is how I ended up being a set costumer on Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey despite not having much film experience.

Safe

How did you go about designing Carol’s evolving wardrobe in Safe? She goes from having an immaculate style at the beginning of the film to wearing a nondescript, washed-out, and loose-fitting uniform in the end.

Todd knew exactly what he wanted, but we collaborated on the overall color palette of the film. In the beginning, Carol is just another pretty Sherman Oaks housewife, so we wanted her to look a bit like a Stepford wife—perfect, feminine, and nonconfrontational. The pastel palette was perfect for her; it’s so soft and sweet. The late eighties were a very pastel-heavy time, and frills were also very in-fashion. But as Carol starts to learn about the things in the world that might make her sick, she realizes her clothing could make her sick. She starts to buy all-natural cotton, dye-free clothing, which back then was not so easy to find! Her new clothes begin to change the way she moves and feels. She’s less confident. All the artifice is stripped away and it’s just her.

Tell me about the costume for Lester, the man in the ski suit we see walking in the distance at Wrenwood. He appears only briefly, but the film is often associated with his haunting image. How did you come up with his look?

I’m sad to say that Rio Hackford, the actor who plays Lester, just recently passed away. He was a friend, someone I knew from going to clubs in the early nineties. Todd gave me complete freedom for Lester. The only direction he gave me was that Lester was afraid of everything. I thought he would cover himself completely so that nothing could touch him—like a germaphobe of sorts. I tried a few different looks made up of thermals and thrift-store pieces and came up with his costume. I never expected it to be on the poster!

How did you meet Sofia?

There was a production company called Propaganda that a lot of people I knew were working for, and Sofia began directing out of there with her short film Lick the Star. She was dating a friend of mine, and we all started going to dinners at Musso & Franks in Hollywood. Then, when she started dating Spike [Jonze], the three of us—with Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, and Lance Acord—went to dinner every couple of months. One night she said, “Nancy, we just watched Safe last night. I didn’t realize you’d done the costumes. I’m thinking of doing a movie. Would you be interested?” I hadn’t really seen her work, but I liked her, and when she did show me her stuff, I thought it was beautiful. Then I read the script for The Virgin Suicides and just loved it.

When you read the script, did you immediately intuit how the characters might dress? What references did you and Sofia have in mind throughout the process of designing the costumes?

The first thing I thought was, this is my childhood. I grew up in the seventies, so I felt intimately familiar with the world. Sofia and I looked at a lot of rather cinematic photographers, like William Eggleston and Joel Meyerowitz. Those were two big references for us. We also looked at images of people from the sixties and seventies, like Brigitte Bardot, who was used more as a frame of reference than a direct inspiration for any specific character. The Lisbon sisters are sheltered, so their look—even down to their hair—had to be more natural compared to some of the more fashionable styles at that point in the era. Sofia also wanted to approach the aesthetic elements of the film more subtly, which was a desire I really connected with. The goal was to not make the outfit too glaring unless it needs to be glaring—Trip’s tiny bathing suit was glaring. Josh [Hartnett] was so embarrassed wearing that. Can you tell? He wouldn’t take his hands off his body.

Even though the sisters have a consistent style, I’ve always loved the specificity of each girl’s wardrobe and what it reveals about her personality. Were those costume details part of the script?

No, I just created them based on the personality traits Sofia and I discussed—like who is more bookish or immature, or who is trying to be sexy. Because Mary is the oldest, her look is a bit more mature; Cecilia has her own style because she’s the youngest. We got their school uniforms from a uniform supplier and adapted them according to the vision for each character. We also made the white 1930s-style dress that Cecilia wears at her party. I’m not sure if this was in the script at all, but we came up with a backstory for that costume—it was supposed to be vintage, maybe her grandma’s teenage dress that the girls found in the attic somewhere.

The prom dresses are the most obvious examples of the differences within their uniformity. How did you go about designing them?

I made the prom dresses as well as Trip’s velvet suit. For the dresses, I looked at a lot of old sewing patterns because we knew their frugal mother would be making the dresses in the world of the film. I found the fabric in three different colors, though you may not be able to tell unless you look closely: one has pink flowers, one has blue, and one has yellow. I don’t know if you’ve ever sewn from a pattern, but you can use the same fabric to create one dress with long puffy sleeves, one with an open neck, etc. So that’s what I did, to make it seem like their mother just made the pattern in four different ways. The dresses aren’t sexy. Kirsten Dunst’s character, Lux, has a more form-fitting one, but it isn’t deep-cut—everything is covered.

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The Virgin Suicides

You mentioned the velvet suit. People always talk about the sisters’ wardrobes, but Trip’s style is so distinct; we understand so much about who this guy is immediately with the establishing shot of him in the leather jacket.

I just knew that his character would never wear a polyester suit. I didn’t care how “in” it was at the time. I thought he would look even cooler in a fucking burgundy velvet suit. He’s supposed to be the cool guy, untouchable and ahead of his time. I wanted him to have his own sense of style, which is primarily shown through that suit and the leather jacket (which might’ve been pleather, though that was cool back then as well). You put on a jacket like that, and it makes you feel different than if you had on, say, denim. That feeling can inform so much of a performance, down to the way the actor walks and carries themselves.

I always admire the subtlety of your designs and how each costume feels motivated by the character and where they are psychologically in their story.

Costume design can be very psychological. The best costumes get into the character’s head and are expressions of how they think about clothes. A lot of people love fashion, but some people could care less and would rather not deal with it in their day-to-day lives. Then there’s a whole range of people in between. You have to look at where people are in their lives and what’s influencing them. What are they listening to? I always like to ask actors what kind of music they think their character listens to. I’ve had several directors make playlists for the crews or heads of departments to get them in the mood of the project. In costume design—whether it be for films or commercials—you’re speaking to an audience and trying to convey who the characters are, which can be generic or personality-driven. It’s all storytelling and about seeing the work come together and fit like a piece of a puzzle.

Nancy Steiner with actor Robert Schwartzman
on the set of The Virgin Suicides

Can you talk about working with David Lynch and designing the costumes for Twin Peaks: The Return?

I was honored to step into the shoes of Patricia Norris, who made the costumes for the original series and worked with David for many years. I just wanted to be true to the characters—and there are so many of them! There were eighteen episodes and, I think, around 246 speaking parts. Everybody thinks it’s easy to make present-day costumes, but “jeans and a T-shirt” can mean a plethora of things. David loves styles from the fifties and older, so the clothes had to be vintage-looking or timeless, you know? It had to be cool. David obviously loves the weird shit, so I knew I had to bring the weird shit!

I love the mix of innocuous, everyday clothes (like the jeans and cardigan that Naomi Watts’s character wears) and the more hyper-stylized looks (like the statement pieces and red bob wig worn by Laura Dern’s Diane).

At first David wanted Naomi to be in a floral dress. I got all these incredible dresses, and we had a fitting in the trailer the night before they shot her first scene. In the morning, David changed his mind and wanted her to wear jeans, a top, and a cardigan. So that happened with no planning at all. That wasn’t the case with Laura Dern’s costumes. For her, we had multiple fittings and came up with a number of different looks. She had to have a bold and fun look since she’s such a strong character.

The act of dressing another person has always struck me as very intimate. Do you feel a unique connection to the actors whose costumes you’ve designed?

Kirsten Dunst was seventeen when we made The Virgin Suicides, and I think it was her first time playing a character who is consciously trying to be sexy. Because of this, there was a vulnerability to her, which was interesting. We became buddies. As a costume designer, I’m always very protective of the actors and want them to be comfortable. I think that’s a role you take on in this position. Especially when the actors are younger, you feel like you’re their mother or big sister.

Hillary Weston is staff writer and social media director at the Criterion Collection. Her work has appeared in Film Quarterly, BOMB, Interview, and BlackBook.

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