The Honorable Woman: Exclusive Interview With the Costume Designer of This Super Stylish Series
After spending the day stuffing your face with turkey and gravy round the table, it’s time to binge watch the new BBC series, The Honorable Woman, now available on Amazon.com. We are obsessed with the fashion in this show, especially with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character, Nessa, an Anglo-Israeli businesswoman who sets out to facilitate peace in areas of the Middle East.
Like Claire Danes in Homeland or even Kerry Washington in Scandal, Gyllenhaal’s character is powerful, yet reveals vulnerabilities. Her outfits, on the other hand, are not susceptible, and the series’ costume designer, Edward Gibbons captures this beautifully in his character’s style. Instead of that governmental power-suit à la Hillary Clinton, the designer provides a covetable wardrobe comprised of timeless vintage and contemporary fashion by the likes of Stella McCartney and Acne Studios.
Yahoo Style caught up with the designer to discuss how he visualized Nessa’s style.
1. YS: How did you conceive the fashion with the character, Nessa?
EG: The look for Nessa was conceived from a detailed reading of the script, discussions with Hugo Blick and massive collaboration with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Maggie came to London two weeks before shooting and we spent a lot of time together, shopping, trying on clothes and talking.
2. YS: Many of the outfits you consider for Nessa in the series, are a mixture of vintage and contemporary dress. Some labels you’ve pulled include Acne, Stella McCartney, and Roland Mouret. Do you follow designer collections?
EG: I basically love clothes, so it feels very natural to me to absorb the collections rather than slavishly follow them. I always try to approach my work with a timelessness that draws on the history of fashion as much as what is going on at the present time.
3. YS: A lot of women aspire to dress like Nessa. Do you find that these looks are accessible to the “everyday woman?” Is this something that you encourage by incorporating consumer brands such as, Acne and Stella?
EG: The way that Nessa dresses has as much to do with the way the clothes are worn as the actual labels. She has style and a confidence and takes her pared down look to the maximum: block colors, few prints and no jewellery ever. So I think that as well as being aspirational, the way Nessa looks is accessible.
4. YS: Before researching script, did you look at the way Maggie Gyllenhaal dressed at events—on the red carpet and everyday? If so, how does her dress correspond to that of her character?
EG: I was always aware of how Maggie dresses. She has a great sense of personal style but she also is a truly professional actor who never allows personal vanity to get in the way of a character. She is very aware of how she looks in clothes and she uses them in a very clever way to add layers to her character.
5. YS: Nessa is a unique character—she is, oftentimes soft-spoken and vulnerable, but overall she’s a very strong woman. How did you capture this polarity in dress?
EG: Nessa uses clothes as armor. When she is working and in public she is always “on” and very careful not to allow any chinks in that armor. When we see her alone and vulnerable we tried to strip this hard exterior away – for instance in her panic room she wears the thinnest silk lingerie.
