Killing Eve: Inside the stories behind Villanelle’s most iconic looks – including that pink dress

Killing Eve: Inside the stories behind Villanelle’s most iconic looks – including that pink dress

Killing Eve’s Villanelle is without a doubt the best dressed villain on the box.

The glamorous assassin, played by Jodie Comer, slayed several striking looks across the eight-episode season, thanks to award-winning costume designer Phoebe de Gaye.

Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Phoebe explained the process of picking out three of Villanelle’s most stylish pieces.

‘When I first went to see the production team with ideas the thing was that Villanelle would have all sorts of different looks,’ Phoebe explained. ‘She’s like a chameleon that keeps the audience guessing, you’re never quite sure and you can’t pin her down.’




Molly Goddard pink dress

The biggest look of the season takes place in the second instalment, I’ll Deal With Him Later, and sees Villanelle slip into her iconic Molly Goddard ensemble, prancing in front of Paris’s Place Vendôme.

‘The pink thing was all to do with contrasting: where you’re going to see it and if it’ll stand out’, says designer Phoebe. ‘The pink was subversive, she was being really naughty and winding up that psychoanalyst and it was a good way of bringing her mischievous facet out.

Villanelle looks girly in the pink Molly Goddard dress, but her black boots signal strength (Picture: BBC)

‘The outrageous thing of mixing it up with black boots and black bras has got the undertone of strength.’

The striking fashion statement paid off and Jodie immediately took to the dress. Phoebe told us: ‘You need an actor who will take it and run with the idea. You can’t put that pink dress on everyone.

‘If you’re fortunate to have given them something to put on that feels right for their character then you can see the whole imaginative process starting to work. Jodie just pranced around in that thing as soon as she put it on. I must say Jodie looked great in the pink frock, she carried it off.’

Villanelle got her flirt on in this red Miu Miu dress (Picture: BBC)

Miu Miu red dress

I’ll Deal With Him Later also sees Villanelle goes on a walk with a date around the Champs-Élysées, wearing a gorgeous red Miu Miu dress.

The outfit, matched with a pair of comfortable white tennis shoes, is Villanelle’s disguise as a ‘normal’ carefree singleton on a quest to find romance.

‘We hadn’t used red and it was good to use red in and amongst all the green trees,’ Phoebe told us. ‘And she had her hair tied up too.

‘She just had to look like she was a sweet person going on a date with a really sweet boy, and she strolled along like butter wouldn’t melt.’

Phoebe added: ‘I had to consider the visuals of how it will look in the place and what the stage is that the character’s at. I just wanted to try and not repeat ideas.’

Villanelle wore a power suit in episode three (Picture: Robert Viglasky)

Dries Van Noten power suit



During episode three, titled Don’t I Know You, Villanelle lures Eve and her associate Bill Pargrave to Berlin by using her name. Bill spots Villanelle and follows her to a nightclub, which subsequently proves to be a fatal mistake when she stabs him to death.

And as pained as we were by Bill’s murder on the dancefloor, Vill’s Dires Van Noten power suit stole the spotlight – sorry Bill.

Villanelle was a woman on a mission in her Dries Van Noten suit (Picture: Robert Viglasky)

‘I knew there would be an androgynous look at some point and that seemed like a good point to do it,’ Pheobe mused. ‘We needed a mannish look and I saw that suit and thought the fabric was fantastic because it’s got a harlequin-like pattern.

‘The cut was great too, and it also had this sheen so the colour would look very good at night in Berlin.’

Villanelle’s outfits are already iconic – proven by the onslaught of girls – and boys – in pink dress knocking on doors during this year’s Halloween.

‘It’s quite funny,’ Phoebe chuckled. ‘Seeing everyone’s versions of it, it’s bizarre really, what takes people’s fancy. It seems rather extraordinary, it’s like a parallel universe.’

Killing Eve series one is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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