With voting open for this year’s Oscars, we’re taking a closer look at some of the craftspeople nominated for the year’s best films—from the people who re-created the golden age of Hollywood for the Coen Brothers to the makeup artist who redefined a pop-culture icon. Check VanityFair.com every day this week for another close-up look at 2017’s Oscar nominees.

Colleen Atwood has designed costumes for films set in the 1920s (Chicago) and in faraway fantasy worlds (Alice in Wonderland, Into the Woods). So when the three-time Oscar winner was hired to costume J.K. Rowling’s new universe, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she was able to merge areas of sartorial expertise—creating period-correct 1920s wardrobes, but with whimsical touches for the wizards wearing them.

“I made a lot of cloche hats, for example, but instead of just having the round crown on them like they normally have, I twisted the fabric so the tops came to little points,” explained Atwood by phone this week. “It was really fun to take the cool hat shape of the 20s and give them a little twist for this wizarding world. I did that with the men’s and women’s cloaks, too—which were quite heavy in that period. I gave them a little more skirt to add a little lightness, so they caught air. They weren’t quite walking around in capes, but their coats had a lightness to them that evoked a similar movement.”

Atwood says that the biggest challenge for her on this film was figuring out the look for Eddie Redmayne’s character, Newt Scamander—the “magizoologist” and protagonist of this Harry Potter spin-off world. Because “he was really the new face of the film,” and the franchise, whatever costume Atwood chose would end up on screens worldwide for years to come—not to mention billboards and merchandise.

Left, illustration by Warren Holder, design by Colleen Atwood; Right, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

“In this film, the girls get to change clothes once when they go into the club. But on the principal cast, there’s not a lot of costume changes,” Atwood explained. “In this case, the costume for Newt has to say who he is very quickly, because you can’t evolve their character through costume changes like you normally would do. . .It was about getting the silhouette right.”

“He had to be able to get up and down off the ground quickly and do a lot of things in the coat,” she continued. So the designer loosened the silhouette of the typical 20s topcoat to give the character more fluidity. “I felt like he was a bird or one of his fantastical beasts. I wanted him to look regular in the world to pass, but also to be exceptional in a sort of subtle way.”