Her City View

During the press junket, I joined interviewed Colleen Atwood, the Costume Designer for 20th Century Fox film "Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children".

Note: I was invited as media to the movie screening and press junket interviews. Any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.

Colleen Atwood did an amazing job dressing the characters. Each outfit matched their character's personality as well as the films time period.

Idea behind the design of the boots & modern elements to it

Colleen Atwood: My inspiration was in my mind, which isn’t anywhere in the book, was that they were based on old irons that people used before electricity. When they heated them up, they were very heavy, and they used to iron clothes with them.

So, that was my inspiration for the filigree and the sort of way they look. As for the findings on them, we didn’t want to use buckles, because it felt we’d sort of done that before, especially Tim and I with all our kind of quasi-bondage moments.

Colleen Atwood: But, we found a pair of really early ski boots, and so we used the findings and the clips across the front for ski boots. And, because the shoes had to be a quick release for different parts in the story, it worked really well to use those kind of things. They just spring any you can come out of them. So, even though they look kind of modern in today, they predate the film.

Inspiration behind Miss Peregrine’s costume

Colleen Atwood: The main thing that Eva Green [Miss Peregrine] and I talked about was having the costume have some kind of quality that was birdlike, without saying I’m a bird.

She [Eva Green as Miss Peregrine] has an amazing physique, so she lends herself to that sort of slim kind of goth middle and the kind of pointy shoulder. She was a little bit pointy as a character.

So, instead of doing a puff sleeve, we did the points on her sleeves. I didn’t really want to put her in a black costume. I found this amazing piece of navy blue wool crepe to make the costume. Inside her shoulders there is a little inset. There's a box pleat.

Colleen Atwood: There’s a feather that’s embroidered in a metallic and silk thread that sort of--I like how animals in nature sometimes they have a little piece of color or something that’s sort of bright that their own species catch but other people don’t catch, and then sort of that was my inspiration for that in her costume.

And, I wanted to make her long – her things are all pointed kind of like feathers, and her jacket goes down in a little V in the back that, that kind of helps sell bird a little bit without being too aggressively birdlike.

Favorite character to design a costume for

Colleen Atwood: They were all. You have the Peregrine world in this sort of Evergreen costume. I love doing those kind of costumes. Then the kids, it’s just like each one was so cute, and they were so well-cast. They are such interesting looking children. They weren’t like the usual cute movie kids. They were really unique little characters.

So, it was really fun with each one of them creating the person that they were, and they all fell into place in a way that was creatively really fun.

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN opens in theaters September 30, 2016. Seek the Peculiar. Get tickets here - www.fox.co/PeculiarTix

SYNOPSIS

From visionary director Tim Burton, and based upon the best-selling novel, comes an unforgettable motion picture experience.

When Jake discovers clues to a mystery that spans alternate realities and times, he uncovers a secret refuge known as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

As he learns about the residents and their unusual abilities, Jake realizes that safety is an illusion, and danger lurks in the form of powerful, hidden enemies. Jake must figure out who is real, who can be trusted, and who he really is.

Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Ella Purnell, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, with Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed By: Tim Burton

Learn more, visit - www.foxmovies.com/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children