A Conversation With Catherine George, Costume Designer

I was excited this week to get to sit down (virtually) with costume designer Catherine George (Snowpiercer, We Need to Talk About Kevin) to discuss her newest project, Okja, the Tilda Swinton/Jake Gyllenhaal film which recently premiered at Cannes —  and which features a gang of animal rights activists, an evil monolithic corporation with a truly weird woman at the helm, a sweet young animal lover, some very dramatic madras shorts on Jake, and one sincerely GIGANTIC pig.

GFY: So, tell us how you got involved with this project.

CATHERINE GEORGE: I had worked with director Bong Joon Ho on Snowpiercer, and we stayed in touch, and had seen each other often. Okja’s been talked about for a long time, so I was aware of it, and was really just waiting for the go ahead.

GFY: Snowpiercer was such a stylized, world-building experience, while Ojka is (kind of) based in the contemporary world. Is there a difference in your creative process when you’re working on something that’s set in the so-called real world?

CG: It starts off with a lot of research. Basically, each character was researched heavily, looking at CEOs, animal experts, and TV personalities to see what they actually wear — and then go from that point. I worked with the production designer, Kevin Thompson, closely on colors and color stories and themes, and we worked closely with Director Bong. We had to do a lot of Skyping because [Bong] had started shooting early, in Korea, and so that was quite complicated, with the time difference and shooting in three different countries.

GFY: That must have been incredibly challenging, from a logistical standpoint.

CG: That was probably the most challenging portion of the movie.

GFY: Jake Gyllenhaal plays a sort of…degenerate crackpot TV host in the film, and he looks very different than we’re using to seeing him. Could you talk a bit about what it’s like to take such a recognizable movie star and turn him into such a character? (In both senses of the word.)

CG: When to comes to the character side of things, we had basically taken all the research and brought in the phsyical garments and Jake just jumped right into the shorts and shirt and hat, and it all went from there. But it was actually a very organic process. He and Director Bong had a lot of fun in the fittings. Director Bong like to be involved in the fittings and you can tell you’ve hit the right look when you hear laughing.

GFY: Jake’s costumes are very funny. Are they based on anyone in particular?

CG: There are a few influences. Steve Irwin and Jack Hannah and a British TV personality who’s not with us anymore, but who I grew up with, Johnny Morris. He had a show called Animal Magic, and I think Jon Ronson, the [screen]writer, had used that as a reference. So it was really an amalgamation of all of those animal experts.

GFY: Can we talk about who your inspiration was for Lucy Mirando, Tilda Swinton’s character? She reminded me a bit of Gwyneth Paltrow in her GOOP incarnation.

CG: Yeah, exactly! That was one of the people that we looked at. We looked at Gwyneth, we looked at Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO, we looked at Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos). And we looked at Ivanka Trump, and we actually looked at Richard Branson. When we were looking at him, we saw that he had this funny habit, for a while, of dressing up in native clothing of the countries [he was doing business with]. So that kind of led us into that. Tilda and I thought that Lucy Mirando’s character would definitely want to try to pander to a specific audience [that way].

GFY: Right. There’s a pivotal scene in the film where Swinton’s character is wearing a Chanel gown that’s based on the traditional Korean hanbok.

CG: We came upon these images of Branson — and, you know it’s always a constant dialogue with Tilda and it’s a very collaborative process. We’re quite comfortable with each other. We decided that was a route that we wanted to explore, and we talked to Director Bong about using the hanbok and he was … you know, curious but not 100% convinced. So then I went away and found a million images of hanboks. We found an image of Britney Spears wearing the hanbok, and a lot of western celebrities, when they go to Korea — well, not a lot. There are a few who were photographed in hanboks. And as I was looking, I came across this Chanel version, which was in a runway show I think two years previous to our shooting. When I sent it to Tilda and Director Bong, she rememberered that she’d been at that show and seen that dress. So she contacted Chanel, because she had a relationship with them. And they were really excited about the project, and agreed to make a custom version. So they made us a custom version in our color specificiations. And then I designed Mija’s outfit around the Chanel.

GFY: I think it’s interesting that Chanel was so open to this. Tilda Swinton’s character is not a nice person, and her wearing that could be considered cutural appropriation. Which, to me, makes sense as something that her character would do.  But it seems very open-minded of Chanel to realize, “Hey, this is the right costume for this part,” and not to feel defensive about it.

CG: I think they were looking at the overall project — the movie itself — and they were really excited to be working with Directer Bong, and respectful of his vision.

GFY: You’ve worked with Tilda Swinton on three movies. After that much time together, do you develop a kind of shorthand with each other?

CG: She has a lot of input, and in a completely positive way. I love working with her. It’s like working with friends. It becomes less like work, and it’s really playful and fun. I think when you do work with someone for a while, it does become a a kind of a shorthand.

GFY: Judging from her red carpet outings, she definitely has a very profound visual sense of style and is a risk taker in terms of what she’s willing to wear.

CG: Completely. And I think her fashion persona and her film persona are also two different things. It’s not she comes into a project, and is like, “I only want to wear designer wear.”  She comes in and wants to completely submerse herself in this character. So, it’s a lot of fun. But when I worked with her the first time, I was a little nervous. You know, I’m a huge fan and because of her kind of iconic fashion persona…

GFY: It must have been an intimidating prospect.

GC: Yes. But once we started our fitting, you could really tell that she’s really 100 percent behind her character.

GFY: What is your favorite piece in the film? Is it the Chanel? Or is there something else that viewers should keep a lookout for?

GC: There’s a few little things. I love the Chanel gown. Jake has a Hawaiian shirt that has tiny little animals on it, which you might not notice if you weren’t watching on a huge screen. I like those little details. I also like the ALF [Animal Liberation Front] character Silver. We gave all the ALF a backstory so I could create their look based upon that, and his backstory is that because he’s trying to save the planet and have the smallest footprint, he doesn’t eat. So I had the idea that he was maybe a cyclist. He wouldn’t want to use public transport or drive. So his look was based upon a New York bike messenger. And it was fun to do that. Also, the mask that he wears is kind of like…I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this yet. It’s like a heart shape. When we were in Korea, there were a lot of hearts — you know, the hand signal, with the heart? — and his mask comes out of that. We always got a kick out of that piece.

GFY: Is there anything else you’d like to mention about the film, that we might not be aware of?

CG: I really want to mention the Korean designer, Se-yeon Choi. She did all the Korean characters — she designed all of Mija’s outfits in the countyside, with all the beautiful colors, the greens, the reds and the violets that really pop out. I just wanted to mention what an amazing job she did. For the overall project, it gives this real authenticity to the Korean countryside, and the overall look. She really has the essence there.

GFY: It really is a beautiful film. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us about it!

Okja premieres on Netflix today, June 28th. This interview has been slightly edited for clarity. All images by Netflix.

If you enjoyed this interview, you might like our recent chat with GIRLBOSS designer Audrey Fisher.