LONDON — Todd Field’s third feature film, “Tár,” isn’t supposed to be about fashion.
The protagonist, Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett, is at the height of her career as the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and an EGOT recipient. Early on in the film, she’s being fitted for a suit at the atelier of German tailor Egon Brandstetter, which sets the tone for Blanchett’s intellectually handsome character.
“I wanted to do costumes that nobody will look at. I just wanted to support the wardrobe, feelings and emotions of what was written in the script,” costume designer Bina Daigeler told WWD. It’s taken her by surprise that so many viewers have walked away from the film thinking about Blanchett’s monochrome uniform, she said.
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Daigeler took her costume cues from the script, which contained precise descriptions. She started the shopping process for the film in London — pulling pieces from Lemaire, Studio Nicholson and Max Mara.
“I went by intuition with my shoppers to the stores and put the things together that we thought had the right feeling,” added Daigeler, who designed three suits for Blanchett that were worn as separates rather than as a full ensemble.
Blanchett’s character is like a politician who is never seen out of their uniform. A vintage Rolex worn inward and a selection of high-waisted pants with an elongated back, some custom made and others from Dries Van Noten and Studio Nicholson, are her armor — not once is she to be seen in a skirt or dress.
In every scene she stands tall with pole-like posture, which Daigeler explained as “important” for a conductor because “it’s all about the strength in the core and so the pants helped her with this image.”
“As she’s already lived for years in Berlin, her inspiration is somehow this intellectual gray city Berlin look with an input of America with her baseball caps. Her suits give her a lot of power, but they’re also very comfortable to conduct in. She’s not a person who stands up and takes an hour to make herself look presentable, but still holds a lot of power through her dressing,” said Daigeler, who sought to create a uniform that represented Blanchett’s outer image — ruled by German sensibilities, the city’s graffiti and somber skies — while still incorporating an inner essence of American comfort.
Blanchett wears masculine, monochrome footwear — loafers and sneakers without socks, a nuance Daigeler made up on set.
Daigeler’s take on intellectual dressing contains whiffs of Phoebe Philo’s Celine era and the German designer Jil Sander, whose minimal uniform can be mistaken for the one of a conductor. She reveals that her mood board wasn’t limited to any muses and that she exchanged several texts over the weeks of preparation with Blanchett on “male and female, younger and older people, it was very fluid. There were a lot of people watching on the streets.”
Blanchett’s carefully curated wardrobe in the film contains beautiful black cashmere coats from The Row and Jil Sander shirts, too — items that don’t try to steal the spotlight or overpower the script. “We are not fashion designers, we create around all these inputs that we get and we create for the director and actors. We look very closely into the production design and the lighting,” said Daigeler, whose challenge on a film set is to adapt to the surroundings.
The German costume designer shot to fame after working on Pedro Almodóvar’s colorful sets creating the wardrobes for “All About My Mother” in 1999 followed by “Volver” in 2006. She has collaborated with Blanchett on a few occasions, including “Manifesto” and “Mrs. America,” earning her a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards nomination for costume design and then an Academy Award nomination for the Disney live action film “Mulan.”
Daigeler has just wrapped up another project with Disney about the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga that will be released in the fall, focusing on the designer’s rise in fashion and his period in Paris from the ’30s to the end of his career.
The series has had support from Balenciaga — allowing Daigeler full access to their archives and previous museum exhibitions.
“The shapes are just so complicated and interesting, especially when you’re trying to recreate the pieces such as the envelope dress,” said Daigeler, who replicated all the pieces with her team.
The ideation started in February and shooting began in May and ended in October last year.
Daigeler is in talks for another commission that she’s holding close to her chest. “I will start to work with a very interesting director soon, it has a lot to do also with costume making,” she hinted.