COSTUMES

 

Introduction

Clementine and I wanted to use costumes to consolidate the portrayal of our characters. Initially we wanted to play into traditional gender roles, to reflect how Lucy's opinion isn't valued as she sits at the table, and to add to the toxic nature of the relationship portrayed. Similarly, we wanted the female extras to also wear feminine costumes. In order to fit the dinner party scene that we imagined, the clothing also had to be relatively formal. We allowed the extras to choose their own clothing, and they sent us pictures before the day of filming so that we could approve them.

Lucy's Outfit

Lucy's outfit was a floral blue dress, fulfilling the feminine representation. We also emphasised her femininity by starting out the video with her applying makeup. This creates a persona that Lucy adopts during the dinner party. However as she is mistreated, and her anger grows, she is stripped of the persona. Along with using the projector imagery to represent her spreading anger, Lucy also wore a plain white shirt to symbolise the fact she has stripped back her persona and she is just being herself. 

Inspiration and Conventions

Music within the alternative rock/pop genre varies, and so does costumes worn by the artists. A lot of female artists in this genre choose to present themselves as less feminine, whilst others choose to embrace their femininity. What they all have in common is that they present themselves as powerful to their audiences. Although there is a societal perception of masculinity as 'powerful' and femininity as 'weak', artists such as Florence Welch from 'Florence + The Machine' embrace feminine clothing whilst still maintaining autonomy over her image and representation.

Vedaant's Outfit

To fit the theme of the dinner party, we asked him to wear smart clothing. However we specified that we would like him to wear black, to represent how he is closed off in the relationship. Colour psychology shows that black can be symbolic of mystery and power, however it can also evoke emotions such as sadness and anger. This links to the anger felt by Lucy's character, as he puts her down in front of others. There weren't any conventions to follow for his costume, as music videos in our genre don't often follow a narrative structure, so the representation mainly revolves around the artist. 

Extras' Outfit

We gave the extras choice over the outfits, with the instruction to wear relatively formal clothing. However, once we saw Lucy's outfit, we decided to embrace stereotypical gender roles to emphasise the message as Lucy gains back her power. Therefore we instructed our female extras to wear clothes with an element of flowers, to match Lucy's dress.