By Scarlett HarrisFeatures correspondent
Warner BrosThe award-winning costume designer of Saltburn, Sophie Canale, talks about the film’s blend of aristocratic and Y2K styles that has inspired designers.
For a film that seamlessly melds Y2K fashion and aristocratic English-rose style, it’s ironic that the most iconic scene from Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn features no clothes at all – Barry Keoghan’s middle-class striver Oliver Quick gallivanting nude throughout the titular manor at the conclusion of the movie to the strains of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2001 hit Murder on the Dancefloor.
More like this:
“There was a costume for that scene!” says costume designer Sophie Canale who, the night before we spoke, had been awarded the Costume Designers Guild honour for excellence in contemporary film. Canale originally had a velvet robe with the Saltburn crest made that was ultimately scrapped, and now, Canale thinks, belongs to Keoghan. While TikTok has a no-nudity clause, it’s this scene that has inspired the TikTok craze of wealthy youths parading through their own stately mansions. “I knew the film was going to be a gift but it’s crazy how much of a cult classic it’s become,” Canale exclaims.
Warner BrosDespite this controversial scene, there are plenty of clothed encounters that have been just as inspirational – and aspirational. The recent London Fashion Week was awash with what has been dubbed “the Saltburn look”, a throwback to the “loud luxury” of the noughties – in which logomania, boho bags the size of carry-ons, and bright yellow Livestrong bracelets like Jacob Elordi’s Felix Catton wears in the film – reigned supreme.
At Masha Popova’s show, we saw low-slung jeans, exposed underwear and pops of metallic favoured by Venetia Catton (Alison Oliver), while models at Edward Crutchley dangled durries and stomped the catwalk in Ugg boots at Tolu Coker.
“It was a trip down memory lane of brands that I admired so much and couldn’t afford at the time,” Canale says of her research process, which included tapping into formative moments from her school days by trawling old Facebook photos of her and her “friends, drunk at university”. It was also a chance for Canale to nab items that she coveted, such as the Marc Jacobs cherry watch necklace that she put on Venetia, and Kate Moss’s Top Shop line, which many of the girls at Oxford wear in the film.
Getty Images“With much of the 2000s there’s something that’s a bit cheap and tacky,” Canale says of Venetia’s painfully aughts wardrobe, which was a balance of “sluttiness”, as with the too-short black slip Venetia wears under her diamante spiderweb dress that Canale designed for the fateful Midsummer Night’s Dream masquerade party, while also maintaining that air of money being no object. This is reflected in Venetia’s ever-evolving closet of new clothes that she throws on, like the Christopher Kane gown she lounges around the stately home in. “They’re these spoiled rich kids who can just wear anything.”
“There’s nothing more humanising than being the richest, most gorgeous person in the world and still having the worst fake tan and most embarrassing tattoo and badly shaped jeans,” Emerald Fennell said in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine. Not to mention the ratty hair extensions and chipped nails..
Meanwhile, at London Fashion Week, Erdem and Simone Rochas‘ floral patterns, delicate bejewelling and fur accessories conjured Elspeth Catton, or the actress who plays her, Rosamund Pike, for that matter, who has been channelling the Saltburn matriarch’s vibe on the awards circuit. Canale pulled archival items from Valentino and Ossie Clark for the actress and former model, while Chanel fine jewellery partnered with the film to outfit “Poor Dear Pamela” (Carey Mulligan) – her actual character name in the credits – in a mass of strands of interlocking Cs. “The day I put 11 necklaces [on Pamela the] sound [department] were not very happy with me!” Canale laughs.
Dressed to kill
“I love the fact that we have this crossover between fashion designers and costume designers,” she continues. “It’s a huge respect to even be mentioned with those names.”
Lest we think Saltburn is all about the women’s fashion, Oliver, Felix, cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) and lord of the manor James Catton (Richard E Grant) get their fair share of sartorial shine, which is where, arguably, the class implications of the movie really reveal themselves.
AlamyWhile James may come from old money, he mostly gets around in the classic British staples of corduroy trousers and a checked shirt, which Canale shopped for in Piccadilly and on Savile Row. Farleigh is constantly reckoning with his place within the family, and that’s reflected in his unorthodox look, including a replica of Britney Spears’s “Dump Him” T-shirt from the time that can be found all over Etsy and Redbubble juxtaposed with the Saltburn crest signet ring – designed by Emerald Fennell’s father Theo Fennell, who also made much of the jewellery that Elspeth wears – that tips Oliver off to his presence at the masquerade ball.
But it’s Felix and Oliver, the two characters at the centre of Saltburn’s rotten core, in whom this disparity can most clearly be seen. Felix’s rich-boy nonchalance is exemplified by his floppy, side-swept hair, eyebrow piercing and the assortment of Thai bracelets that he accumulated during a gap year backpacking through Asia.
Canale says that she distressed his polo shirts to give them a relaxed quality, whereas Oliver is box-fresh, appearing as if he’s spent all of his limited funds (which we come to find out aren’t so limited after all) trying to buy into an echelon of society he’ll never belong to. At Oxford, Farleigh pointedly remarks on Oliver’s “rented” tuxedo, with all that implies.
AlamyAfter all, these people will always think of him as “the scholarship boy who buys his clothes from Oxfam”. Canale attempted to thrift a lot of the 2000s clothes, which you’d think would still be floating around the charity shops, but fashion has changed in recent years. Charity shops are marketing towards what’s fashionable, while people are buying new clothes with the intention to resell them at a faster turnover.
As Fennell has said in multiple interviews, 2007 exists in this in-between time that’s not long ago enough to be cool, but too long ago that many of us have purged our Von Dutch trucker hats and “oversized belts that had no point”, as Canale calls them, in a fit of trauma cleaning. For the rare few items that are still floating around, Canale managed to pick them up from eBay, Depop and literally “buying them from people’s wardrobes”.
Canale was also inspired by Martin Parr’s photo series that revealed the hidden underbelly of Oxford’s dark academia, which reverberates through to the debauchery of Saltburn and Midsummer Night’s Dream ball.
Although Canale’s work was recognised by the aforementioned Costume Designers Guild in the contemporary film category, Canale sees Saltburn as a period piece. “I was so inspired by the script, because you could read it and think of Brideshead [Revisted], but having it set in a contemporary world with contemporary fashion – but with a period backdrop – was genius. It was such a new visual for audiences to enjoy,” she says.
AlamyCanale is no stranger to that genre, having worked as an assistant costume designer on season one of Bridgerton, before being promoted to head of the department for season two.
“It’s a lovely experience to have such a breadth of work,” she continues. “I very much want a career that’s very different. I don’t want to be typecast into any one [era].”
Scarlett Harris is the author of A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler.
If you liked this story, sign up for The Essential List newsletter – a handpicked selection of features, videos and can’t-miss news delivered to your inbox every Friday.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
