Image via Victoria & Abdul Instagram

Meet Costume Designer Consolata Boyle, a Storyteller Through Fashion in Film

Wardrobe and costumes are an extension of the personality of the character donning them as well as a representation of the story’s time and place.

Consolata Boyle is an award winning costume-designer who not only takes this responsibility seriously but loves it. With an enviable and remarkable career in film, you’ve seen some of her work dressing iconic women like Helen Mirren in The Queen, Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady and Florence Foster Jenkins and currently Judi Dench in Victoria & Abdul. Boyle was kind enough to take some time to chat with Smart Girls about her role in the films she works on and how even the smallest piece of wardrobe can make a powerful statement.

SMART GIRLS: How did you go about researching the costumes of the period?

Consolata Boyle: I absolutely adore the process of research whether it’s a contemporary piece or period or naturalistic or magical. Whatever it is, I like to start with a complete blank sheet if I didn’t know anything about that particular subject matter. So I usually throw a very wide net, social history, physical, environmental, everything going on in the world of these people. Of course the search is dictated by the script and the vision of the work. Then you refine, you let go. You have to have courage at that stage to know which direction you’re going in, what story you’re going to tell. What colors you will use, what textures you will use, shapes you will use. So it’s going very wide then refining back in, always led by the script.

“We’re storytellers, that’s what we do.”

SG: What was your favorite thing that you learned about the era throughout working on this film?

CB: I love investigating different worlds from scratch. Closed off worlds are particularly interesting. I’ve been very lucky to work with [director] Stephen Frears quite a bit and actually every project he does is completely new, everything is so different. I particularly love this period, you have to get all of the elements of the royal detail right, of her life, of the court. I had done the English royal family before for The Queen, which was contemporary, but for their world all the nuances have to be right. Another thing I loved for Victoria & Abdul was investigating the whole Indian world, that was really wonderful. I had done my post-graduate after Archaeology in Indian and Asian textiles. It was lovely to develop on that and find out more.

SG: How have clothing habits changed from Queen Victoria’s age until now?

CB: It’s very interesting, the thought of romanticism or Victorian fashion is still always there. It’s always reappearing. In fashion it’s about taking pieces from the past and reinventing them. These high necks and gathered fabrics, it re-emerges in slightly different forms and can appear in very unexpected places. Although our whole world now is about speed of motion, lack of fuss.

SG: How did the way people dressed in Victorian times indicate their station in life?

CB: The higher stations wore embellished clothing and it’s about the amount of fabric and type of fabric. Simple wools would have been worn by the lower workers. Those of the higher class would have elaborate silks, that needed a lot of maintenance and were highly decorated. The poor would have the coarser fabrics, less shape and leaning more towards utility. High Victoriana would be the very opposite. Victorians loved jewelry and decorations of all kinds. You can also see in their houses how they over embellished in their environments.

SG: How is the Western perception/fantasy of India, during the Victorian era, versus the reality of India represented in the film’s costumes?

CB: The royal uniform designed for Abdul was a Western concoction, based on a painting, but speaking to the imagination of the royal tailor. They have all the Western elements and they have Indian elements and then the big emblazoned royal crest like all the other servants in the household. So, there’s this strange amalgam of this East meets West in the kind of Western arrogance of “this is what we think you should look like, we thought you should wear a sash because you didn’t look Indian enough.”

Then as he develops into her teacher, he starts to wear a much more ethnic [wardrobe]and you see a much more real feel, and it gets grander and grander as he gets more powerful within the royal household. What I was thinking about there was the perception of how his clothes had an elaborate nature and the exoticism of his clothes would irritate the royal household even more. The darkness of the Victorian household contrasted with the light and vibrance and energy of decorative beauty of the silks that Abdul brought in. The story was about the contrast between the two worlds.

SG: What is one piece of advice you would give a young woman who wants to follow in your footsteps?

CB: I hope that both young men and young women will! You should have as broad and as wide experiences as possible before you go in. And not just studying costume design-which is terribly important and vital! But because you have to bring in so many elements into costume design and movie making now. You have to be able to express what you want and develop your imagination and be interested in everything in the world. You have to bring all this knowledge with you. I would advise to be open to as many life experiences as you can and to love film, go to movies, go to theater and really immerse yourself. You have to love the medium because it’s a tough world, so love it first.