Costume design is an underrated yet crucial element of cinema’s magic. If filmmakers manage to transport us from our everyday aspirations and concerns into worlds of fiction, it is also thanks to the role costumes play in building those worlds. It’s no surprise that some of the most stunning, imaginative costumes in the history of costume design were the result of collaborations between designers with a deep understanding of the source material and filmmakers with a clear aesthetic vision for their creation. The costumes created by New Zealand designer Kate Hawley for Guillermo del Toro’s films exemplify designs that are both profoundly evocative and rooted in the Mexican director’s signature aesthetic.
The beetle outfit from Frankenstein (2025)
This outfit, worn by British actress Mia Goth as Elizabeth Harlander in Guillermo del Toro’s elemental adaptation of Mary Shelley’s seminal 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is an example of historical costuming done right and an exquisite device to aid the introduction of a pivotal character.
Insectile imagery is a consistent feature in Guillermo del Toro’s oeuvre, and his latest work continues this trend. Frankenstein is the story of scientist Victor Frankenstein’s attempt to conquer death, which brings about his undoing and the awakening of his creation. In this Gothic tale, the character associated with insects is Elizabeth, Victor’s brother’s fiancée. Unlike anyone else in the film, she immediately develops an understanding for the Creature, showing him empathy and care. “She understands him. She just knows, ‘I see you. I may not look like you, but I feel like you.’ That was a big point for me,” said Goth to Netflix’s Tudum.
Her tenderness and scientific mind are both reflected in her interest in insects and in her distinctive, exquisitely Gothic wardrobe. Speaking to The Australian, Hawley explained that del Toro envisioned the film’s costumes as characterized by a saturated color palette, especially Elizabeth’s. To fit these into the film’s Gothic aesthetic, Hawley looked at the Tiffany archives and the brand’s use of colors in its favrile glass.
Tiffany & Co.’s contribution to the movie went beyond aesthetic inspiration as Frankenstein features an array of Tiffany pieces, some pulled from the archive and others contemporary creations. A fruitful collaboration for Hawley, who believes that “jewelry is an extension of the person”. The clasped choker Goth wears in this scene is an archival Louis Comfort Tiffany necklace from the early 1900s, featuring iridescent crystal scarab motifs set in gold.
Elizabeth’s dress and the fan embody the costume designer’s textile and aesthetic choices for this character. The dress is an ethereal and unsettling juxtaposition of gauzy, flowing fabrics and an anatomical X-ray pattern. In this outfit, Kate Hawley demonstrates her ability to weave period-appropriate details into her work and use them effectively.
While Shelly published her novel in the early 19th century, the Mexican director chose to set his film around the time of the Crimean War, which started in 1853 and ended in 1856. At the time, not only could one find gowns in that otherworldly indigo blue, but that bizarro feathered headdress was also inspired by a mid-19th-century trend.
The blue outfit in Pacific Rim (2013)
Pacific Rim is what happens when you hand an action blockbuster to a director known for his passion for monster films, pacifist ideology, and his distinct aesthetic. Pacific Rim is an atypical blockbuster for the 2010s and an atypical action film. With its neon-filled, retro-dystopian aesthetic, character-driven story, and anti-authoritarian message, Pacific Rim is a cyberpunk Kaiju film that touches upon many of the themes explored by genre-defining works like the Cyberpunk Franchise, Ghost in the Shell universe, and Blade Runner (1982). To this multifarious film, Hawley brought, as usual, her background as a theatre costume designer, with a keen eye for the use of color, shape, and silhouette to deliver a broad impact.
A perfect example of this is the blue outfit worn by a young Mako Mori, played by Rinko Kikuchi as an adult and by Mana Ashida as a child, in one of the film’s most heartfelt sequences. This outfit, created by the costume designer, perfectly encapsulates the traumatic and proudly transitional moment Mako is living through, one that marks a clear before-and-after.
The outfit mixes vivid shades: the red of her shoes, a symbol of her old life but also of the deaths that brought it to an end, and the bright cerulean of her coat. As usual in Hawley’s work, the color choice is no coincidence. In fact, blue is the hue that symbolizes Mako’s connection with the Kaiju, and it’s her signature color throughout the film. Thanks to the mid-century inspired style of the coat and its striking shades set against a bleak, gray urban background, this outfit marks Mako as a dark, sci-fi Alice in Wonderland, but in typical del Toro’s fashion, it also highlights the impact of war and violence on children.
The spine dress from Crimson Peak (2015)
Crimson Peak is what Guillermo del Toro effectively described as “a ghost story and gothic romance”. It has all the elements of the quintessential Gothic novel. A crumbling historical mansion, ghosts, secrets, and twisted desires. It tells the tale of American heiress Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), who, at the turn of the century, meets English aristocrats Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain). As she marries Thomas and follows the siblings to their ancestral Cumbrian estate, Crimson Peak, misfortunes befall her.
The film’s story and its fevered, nightmarish aesthetic are structured around the dichotomy of Edith and the Sharpes. This dichotomy was reflected and incarnated in the work carried out by Hawley. The costumes followed the color palettes del Toro had in mind. Golden colors and warm tobaccos for Edith, while the Sharpes are donned in blacks, cyans, and red. In Hawley’s mind, Edith was supposed to be the metaphorical vibrant butterfly, while Lucille was the dark moth.
Lucille’s darkness is that of all Crimson Peak‘s ghosts, bathed in the red clay leaching from the Sharpe family’s mine beneath the mansion, and the spine dress is the ideal mirror of her violent past and intentions. Lucille’s outfits resemble a skeleton and the skeletal red specters of Crimson Peak. Her dress is laced up the back following her spine, and ending in a rich train that pools around her feet, following del Toro’s wish to have Chastain’s character look like “a drop of blood”.
In Crimson Peak, Kate Hawley cleverly uses historical fashion to establish the characters’ personalities and life stories. With the curvilinear “S” shape of her gowns, the Pompadour hairstyle, and the dramatic sleeves, hopeful, rich Edith is a Gothic Gibson Girl, firmly rooted in her time. Lucille instead lives in the past, consumed by a desire to regain her family’s long-gone status. Her clothes, while stunning, appear to be a couple of decades out of fashion. Much of her wardrobe evokes 1880s fashion, with its narrow, angular silhouette and rich embellishments. Once again, these choices combine beauty and narrative effectiveness, showing Lucille’s motives, nature, and financial situation, while fulfilling del Toro’s aesthetic vision for the character.
