If you're lucky enough to experience the Broadway show, Moulin Rouge, then you'll experience fashion taking center stage. From the nightclub dancers' intricate corsetry, to the mens' sequin suiting, to the gowns draping the peacocks of the Right Bank, the wardrobes are as central to the storytelling as the choreography, songs and high-octane sets. Many of the costumes, at the genius hands of costume designer Catherine Zuber, were inspired by those design houses staging runway shows today - John Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen and Thierry Mugler, among them. I sat down with Ms. Zuber where we chatted influences behind the looks, and which designers inspire her most.
I'm always looking at what's happening on the runway - mainly in Paris and Milan. For example, there's a scene where suddenly we're in wealthy Paris - and those costumes the rich people were wearing, in mauve and pale pink tones - a lot of that was taken from the Dior collection from 2006. They had taken Belle Epoque visuals, pumped them up to another level, and it was quite inspiring. I don't always look at the current year, but I love to look at couture archives over the last 30 years. There are amazing moments where people are experimenting with taking things from the past and deconstructing and manipulating. John Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix, Thierry Mugler, John Galliano - they're all amazing artists and it's so inspiring how they put colors together, the types of fabrics they use and how they reference the history of costume in such modern, dynamic ways.
The corsetry you see from those couture houses is just incredible. What Mcqueen does, what Mugler does with corsets - we really worked hard on those. The fitting has to be so precise and then for us, there's the added challenge of movement. We had to pay special attention to where the boning is, where it isn't, where the support is, where we put stretch, where we don't put anything. Each piece is fit to such precision. It was quite demanding, but incredibly satisfying in the end.
