Pink lady: Costumer Christopher Hargadon on recreating the Kennedys
Attempting to recreate the wardrobes of one of America’s most documented families sounds like entering a maze that’s impossible to navigate. “It was all-consuming,” admits costumer Christopher Hargadon of History Television’s spring miniseries The Kennedys, a scripted biopic on the rise of the mythic clan. Speaking from his Toronto studio about the task of dressing some 150 characters—Katie Holmes’ Jackie alone has about 50 costume changes—he says his main concern was finding fabrics that reflected the time, like the type of wool used in men’s suits. To mimic the intricate embroidery of one of Jackie’s evening gowns, Hargadon spent hours hand-painting the onscreen replica.
While the library of images Hargadon amassed helped him to recreate looks worn at official appearances, the film also shows the Kennedys’ private lives, and here research found its limits. “I had to design nighties, and there’s absolutely no documentation of that,” he says. “We had to kind of get the flavour from what we’d seen—I chose the colour palette Jackie worked in and the best fabrics and silk chiffons, and went very classical.” While vintage items were used to dress many of the characters—such as Ethel, especially her sportier looks, and family matriarch Rose—Jackie’s outfits, aside from two key looks recreated by Giorgio Armani, were made from scratch by Hargadon and his team. “Once I really looked at Jackie and what she wore and how she put things together, I felt it was necessary. I wanted to get as close to the true essence of how she dressed as possible.”
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