‘The Irishman’ Costume Designers Break Down Dressing 5 Decades of Crime

Hello, this is Christopher Peterson.

Hi, this is Sandy Powell.

And we're the costume designers for The Irishman.

And we wanna spend some time taking you through

The Irishman decade by decade.

This is Notes on a Scene.

♪ I'll hope and I'll pray ♪

♪ To keep ♪

♪ Your precious love ♪

During a film like this, it was so huge,

there were so many costumes to actually do.

There wasn't time to do drawings.

You do a drawing if you're trying to work something out

that's being made,

but in this particular case, on this film,

we worked out what they were wearing by trying things on.

You actually work in 3D, really, to get it done.

It's crazy but I never understood how they would

just keep digging their own graves, you know, I mean.

Stop!

So this is Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran

at his youngest in the film.

The real guy, Frank Sheeran,

was much bigger than Robert De Niro,

but there was no way

we were gonna make Robert De Niro actually 6' 4,

and so to help Bob,

he had some lifts in his shoes sometimes.

And then also we sort of built

up his shoulders a little bit to make him broader

than he actually is, especially in the younger scenes.

Yeah.

[Christopher] Yeah, just right in there.

Ooh, look, squared shoulders like that.

He looks sort of slim and taller,

but he's not necessarily gonna look

like your average 25 year old.

He's been at war for several years

and he's been through all kinds of trauma.

Yeah, no, and at this point he

was like a fighting machine.

He spent something like 412 days

on the battlefield of Anzio,

so he was not to be messed with,

which sort of sets up what's to come in the film.

The 1950's are really where the story takes off.

[Russell] What's the problem, kid?

I don't know, it sounds funny.

It stops and starts and loses power.

Let me see if I can give you a hand.

This is a really typical look for the '50s

with Russell Bufalino wearing this gabardine jacket.

Usually he's very smartly dressed,

this is sort of casual but it's still really smart

and very typical of the period.

And it's the first appearance, really,

of a bold tie that we used a lot on this character.

And the boldest ties are sort of most typical

of the '40s into the '50s

and then later on you'll see

that the tie silhouette start narrowing.

I owe you anything?

No, no, you don't owe me anything.

Look at the tie!

[Christopher laughing]

So yeah, I mean, the '50s the shoulders broadened out

and it got a little bit boxier,

a little bit longer than the '40's.

I mean, 'cause all of the '40s suits and silhouettes on men,

they were much more abbreviated because of the war

and fabric rationing and just the style of the time,

but once everybody came home,

there was a bit more money

and everyone went a bit more adventurous

with how much they'd spend on clothing too.

The look for Frank here is

his very sort of typical teamster look.

It's a leather jacket that a young man of his age

in this period would be wearing,

especially somebody who does a job driving around all day.

And the cap also was very typical of a sort of teamster.

[singing in foreign language]

I should Instagram that.

A lot of people are gonna appreciate

what you did today Frank.

You got families, you got kids, they need those jobs.

This is the first time that Frank comes

to the Bella Di Roma,

the first time he's introduced to these other characters

that are around.

And what's important here is the Harvey Keitel character,

Angelo Bruno, who really is, of everybody in the room,

the sharpest dresser, really.

He's the boss.

He's kind of the oldest,

he's been around and he knows how to dress.

And then there's Skinny Razor

who's always sort of very nattily dressed.

[markers squeaking]

This is sort of the earlier end of the '50s

and as we go through the '50s,

you see how the silhouette changes

as it heads towards the '60s.

Although the '50s starts out with a wide lapel

for the guys and a wider tie,

and as it gets through the decade,

for the younger characters,

the lapels go more narrow and so do the ties

to sort of fit with the proportions of the suit.

And also like the women, which it echoes all of that,

the skirts are wider, there's just some more volume in them

and then it gets skinnier for them.

It get smaller and everything get smaller

and neater towards the end of '50s as we go into to '60s.

I just wanna draw hearts.

[relaxed music]

[Frank speaking in a foreign language]

[Russell speaking in a foreign language]

So Sandy and I developed this capo collar,

which is a long spear point contoured

very typical of these men from the '50s

and it's a memory from Marty's childhood.

This collar was sort of a exaggerated thing

that kind of made men wore and you saw this collar

and you understood that he was somebody not

to be messed with because it was a slight exaggeration.

And it appears in other films as well.

Except the collar is even more exaggerated

in other films that Marty is known for,

such as Goodfellas and Casino.

But in this particular case,

Marty wanted these guys to be less obvious

and less dandified as the others.

[Russell speaking foreign language]

This is Frank in a suit,

not at his sort of finest just yet.

His jacket is a regular '50s jacket

that would have been off the peg.

At this point, that was his best suit

that he would have worn to go to meet Russell Bufalino.

His collar here, is not as exaggerated as Russell's

'cause he hasn't actually graduated to that level yet.

The shirt's not just a plain white shirt,

there's a kind of like a jacquard,

it's a pale gray, isn't it?

With a jacquard print and a little tie.

The tie pins, I mean we had a lot of tie pins to deal with.

This was our only way of really providing embellishment

or decoration on these guys was sort of tie pins,

clips and cuff links.

[Russell speaking foreign language]

[mellow music]

[Christopher] Well, this one is right at the beginning

of the '60's in 1961.

All these guys, they looked so great.

It was such a uniform.

They're all younger guys, but again,

they're not fashionable.

Now, there would have been some very fashionable young men

around during this time who would've had longer hair,

which these guys don't have at the moment.

Yeah, and they're all wearing these pleated trousers

which really starts to disappear on men of this age

in the 1960's. Yeah.

It goes to a flat front. It goes to a flat front.

And these guys are still wearing a fairly

sort of full-leg pleated pant.

And then all of these camp shirts,

all of this shape is quite voluminous,

which was a echo from the '50s.

You know what I mean?

That shape there.

What's nice about this scene

is that it's set in Miami in the summer,

so it was our really only opportunity

to get a bit lighter in tone and color.

Things like colors are always indicative of a period.

By the mustard yellows, like here, I think is,

you know, this guy here,

is pretty '60s.

There was an awful lot of research material available to us

of actual events that really happened,

including documentary footage of Hoffa in particular.

Not so much Frank Sheeran,

we just had sort of family photographs,

but we had many photographs of groups of men like these

in the scene that we can see here.

There's nothing necessarily summing up as archetypal '60s,

but none of these guys are particularly fashionable.

They're just ordinary guys,

so they're in pretty ordinary clothes

that they may well have had for several years.

They all kind of liked to do the same thing

and the whole reason their holding this convention in Miami

at the Deauville Hotel,

I mean, there was a reason to take their wives on vacation.

[Irene] It's gorgeous.

Beautiful.

We are in the best of health, we love you.

He's now being protected by the Bruno family

and he has become Hoffa's bodyguard,

so he's sort of a made man.

And then we've moved now into this very skinny tie.

Look at that tie, come on.

Yeah, pretty good tie.

I think he exudes more of a sort of a confidence here

but that might not have been before.

Kind of like good clothes do to you, don't they?

You know, you're wearing something fabulous

and you feel good and so you kind of have a different aura.

[Christopher] Yeah, and people treat you

differently as well.

[Irene] Ooh, look at those [gasps].

So nice!

I heard you liked to skate.

Here, Russell is still sort of wearing his '50s look

a little bit with a large pattern

along with his rather bold Christmas cardigan.

And it's another good example of his character full ties,

except his tie is still a little bit '50s.

It's a wider tie than Frank's wearing

'cause Frank's a younger man

so he's got a more contemporary, narrow tie.

[markers squeaking]

I heard you like to skate.

What do you say?

[Sandy] I kind of got the feeling in this scene

that Russell's wearing his Christmas look under duress--

I think so too. Like made to wear it.

Don't you? I think so too.

Santa Claus left you a little something extra

in there too.

[Christopher] We're back in Miami again,

although this time 10 years later than we were before.

Hoffa is having a meeting with Tony Pro

who's late, very importantly.

Tonally again, with much lighter tones, softer colors

like the last time we were in Miami,

which is nice it was just always a relief to have a change

from the dark, somber looking suits.

The only time you do is when?

When you wanna say something.

I know.

When you wanna say [beep] you.

That's the only time.

Here he is.

[Christopher] Stephen Graham is fearless.

He will wear anything.

[Sandy] Okay, so this is Stephen Graham

in probably the most talked about outfit in the film--

Easily. Actually.

So many people have asked me if this outfit was

in the script or if it's something that we just dreamed up.

So should we tell them or should we [laughs]?

Well, yeah.

No, let's keep it a secret.

So obviously it was written in the script that Tony Pro

is wearing shorts because, obviously, as we see,

Hoffa gets very upset about that.

But it didn't describe what kind of shorts

and then the script was written

before we knew who was gonna be playing Tony Pro,

so then we get Stephen Graham, who's fantastic.

Fearless.

And what we did was we just got about 100 pairs of shorts,

100 different shirts and had a session

where we tried on lots of different shorts,

lots of different shirts in various combinations.

And we hit this one sort of fairly early on, actually,

and kind of knew that it was right.

It was just the two, the shirt with the pants,

and then, at a later point,

we found the fabulous white Gucci shoes.

It came together and, of course,

once we had tried on all of this and we really,

I mean, we chose the boldest, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Of all of them, right?

Can you believe this weather, Frank?

[Frank] Huh?

[Tony] It's 85 degrees outside.

[Sandy] Hoffa is wearing,

you know, Hoffa always wears a suit.

He's pretty well turned out all the time,

but this is sort of more of a causal looking suit for him

even though he's wearing a suit because it's a meeting.

It's hot, but he's still wearing a suit

and he's actually still wearing a tie,

but it's just the lighter tone for him.

And this point we've,

you know, we're in the middle of the '70s

so we've moved into the polyester fabric in the suit

and the much wider tie.

And much wider lapel, like this.

Whereas before we had a narrow lapel like that.

And then to go with the wider lapel on the jacket,

we get the tie gets much wider as well.

Yeah.

[Tony] Why?

It's summer.

People aren't freezing to death in New York.

It's summer.

We found the perfect shirt that was a vintage shirt,

but because immediately after this moment

there is a scuffle, a fight, on the floor,

we had to make more than one

because we had to do one for stunt double

even though we didn't use a stunt double, did we?

He did his own stunts.

Yeah, he wouldn't let anybody do his stunts [laughs].

So we had to do,

we had to make multiples,

so we had to recreate this shirt.

So we had to copy the print of the shirt

and did digital prints to replicate it exactly

and then made multiples,

and the same with the shorts.

I think it's quite funny

that he's wearing it open right down to here

so we can see his chest.

So it's kind of even more disrespectful,

and anything that is decided like this,

the actor has to feel comfortable.

It might have been his idea, we would have to agree,

and then equally,

Marty would have something to say if he disagreed,

but I think this was one of the looks he really loved.

[Christopher] Yeah, the sunglasses are fabulous.

Again it's another sort of sign of his disrespect

that he's not even taking his sunglasses off in the room.

Sure.

Whereas look, you can see,

Hoffa's glasses are on the table.

And they're wonderful because,

until he leans into the light,

you can't see what are going on with his eyes

and sometimes it's quite nice.

You're late.

Yeah, there was traffic.

Yeah, there's traffic, ha!

[Emcee] We've got a great crowd for Frank tonight, huh?

Come on, give it up.

[Christopher] This is the Frank Sherran

appreciation night.

It was a dinner that actually happened

at the Latin Casino in Philadelphia to honor Frank

because at this point,

he was teamster leader, president of the local then.

We're right in the middle of the '70s here.

There were hundreds of extras in this scene,

all sat down for the dinner,

and this was our only opportunity to do an evening wear,

so in a way, it's kind of the most glamorous scene.

It's the most sort of dressed up, done up,

so we had women with hairdos and sparkly dresses

and men all dressed up rather smartly.

♪ The times are here to stay ♪

[Sandy] This was our one moment of glamor

in the entire film really.

And glitter.

And glitter, there's some sparkles.

There's actual sparkle going on here.

They were meant to be The Golddiggers

because The Golddiggers were there

at the actual Frank Sheeran appreciation night

backing up Jerry Vale, a very popular singer from the time.

Again, there was a lot of research

about what these women wore,

and so Sandy and I did an amalgam of a bunch

of different outfits and came up with these.

These lovely white cat suits.

We wanted to have something with movement,

and I thought to have fringing would be great.

And this fringing actually,

that sparkles and is sort of like crystal but plastic,

is actually made from those sort of fringe curtain things

that you get that you put in doorways

cut up into strips and then attached

to the bras of the girls.

There was one point in our work room where there were,

I think, about 12 people sitting around two different table,

hand, individually putting each one of these crystals

in the center of the daisies.

[markers squeaking]

This is just all bare skin here but it looks sometimes

like maybe there's a fabric there,

but it's just the fringing dropping off the edge of the bra.

♪ Our yesterday is over ♪

The '70s were a bit,

they wore a lot of sequins, a lot of sparkle,

but I think for evening wear in particular,

I mean, I think you get a bit of glitter

whatever period you're in.

I can't believe we're talking

about glitter in The Irishman.

I know, I can't either.

They should have had more glitter.

This is the thing, is the next time--

If only we'd had more glitter.

Just like VFX, some kind of glitter lapel.

A glitter edge--

A glitter edge.

On Hoffa, Frank could have sort of a few sequins on a tie.

No, Glitter Gangsters.

Marty might object, but you know that's not--

No, we can talk him round.

Gangsters and glitter, that's--

Now you're talking.

That's Irishman part two,

which will be four hours long.

♪ So before the light ♪

♪ Shoo be doo ♪

♪ Hold me again ♪

♪ Shoo doo ♪

[Sandy] This is one of our biggest scenes

in terms of crowd and background.

[Christopher] The crowd is populated with

gangsters and made men.

[Sandy] I think this is really sort of bang on the '70s.

It's the silhouette,

it's the size of the lapels and the colors

on both the men and the women,

and the colors,

they're colors that are so specifically '70s.

The wedding dress is actually a dress that we found.

It's an original wedding dress from the '70s.

The jacket that Bill Bufalino, the father of the bride,

is wearing we made along with the groomsmen.

We made a set of matching baby blue jackets for them.

[Christopher] For the time, actually, for the '70s--

[Sandy] That was very typical.

This is very typical.

It's actually a pretty tasteful dress

compared to come of the horrors that we saw in the research.

It's true, it is.

They're quite demure, these bridesmaids for '70s,

I mean, they're quite demure and they should be,

they're bridesmaids,

but retrospectively we look back and we think,

Oh, God this is like a bit ugly isn't it?

but there were much uglier looks than this back then.

I mean, the fabric is a really synthetic.

Jersey. It's not a polyester,

it's a synthetic jersey, isn't it?

Like qiana.

And it's actually quite difficult

to find these fabrics now.

You know, I mean all these dreadful sort of synthetics

that were invented in the '70s.

It took a long time to find this fabric

that resembled those ones there.

♪ Do bop do ba ♪

Carrie, I made a vow, remember?

Remember I made a vow, Carrie?

Yeah, now I can't smoke on, all right--

[Christopher] May not have had a lot of lines,

but there's something really interesting the women

in The Irishman because they sort of serve

as this chorus for watching all of this bad behavior

that the men do,

so they really were troopers to sort of,

because they're in every scene practically

that the men are in somehow.

The pantsuits were a big thing for sure.

I mean, starting sort of in the '60s really.

They were on a road trip, they sat in the back of the car,

so you know, we figured it's comfortable,

it's easier getting in and out of the car

with a pair of pants on than it is

if you're wearing a skirt or a dress.

Okay, I think it's time for a draw off.

[markers squeaking]

Huge glasses. Huge sunglasses.

Very typical '70 sunglasses.

Always coordinating jewelry, statement pieces I'd say.

The chain belts also were very,

very typical. Huge.

Going back to the proportions of lapels and ties,

everything was getting wider,

everything's getting bigger,

like the sunglasses got bigger.

And then, everything sort of works proportionally

so if collars and lapels on women as well

are getting bigger than the jewelry sort of tends

to get bigger to compliment that.

And pattern, you know, actual pattern

and clashing patterns as well.

And these sort of Pucci-esque,

they're not actually wearing Pucci are they?

But it's Pucci-esque looks,

a famous designer in the '50s and '60s and '70s.

Just sort of like the real house wives of Philadelphia,

so we're not talking about going to Bergdorf's,

we're talking about going

to the local Philadelphia department store

and this is what they would have found.

Pucci-esque. Yep.

Can't forget the handbag.

Matching bags and shoes.

Not huge bags actually, having said huge everything else,

the bags weren't,

for these ladies anyway, they'd have been sort of small,

neat and should match the shoes.

[Christopher] And this actually is quite an expensive bag.

Well, they both had expensive bags in this sequence.

That Lederer bag.

It was a brand at the time. I mean bags,

as always and still are, are sort of a status symbol.

That's how you can sort of show your wealth

with your handbag.

We are mid-'70s, we're '75 here, aren't we?

[Christopher] '75.

[Russell] Phil, you got a nice shop here.

If it's not good for you,

it's not good for me.

These ladies are wearing clothes that they would have worn

in the sort of late '60s, early '70s,

in their heyday.

And it's sort of like we all do,

you sort of carry on wearing the clothes

that you're most comfortable in

at the time when you're most comfortable

with how you look, I think.

So they're sort of slightly backdated,

but looking really well put together.

Quite oftentimes, the decades sort of

meld into one another.

Yes, but then that's true

to say of the entire film, really.

I mean, it's sort of,

we start in the '40s, end up in 2000.

It's actually quite difficult

to tell when the transitions happen.

[Carrie] From you and me.

But what about a baby spoon?

What is she gonna do with a baby spoon?

Have a baby. They're not even married.

Fuck! Retarded.

[Frank] We're all falling apart right there

in the freezing fucking cold.

See it from here.

Stay here another fucking 10 years, you'll beat me.

[Sandy] This is them in prison in the '80s

and obviously we can see that they've aged considerably

and Joe doesn't even have his teeth in.

[Christopher] So much focus has been

on the de-aging process

and it's masterful what Pablo did,

but it's at this point in this story where more traditional

filmmaking techniques with hair and make-up

and what we do with costume kick in.

Like, for instance,

Joe is in a much more oversized shirt

than he probably should be in here,

but it makes him seem more sort of lost in it all.

[Sandy] Fragile, and sort of--

[Christopher] And we did a lot of the same things

with Frank, although not for this scene,

later when we get to the nursing home.

Yeah, they're very vulnerable looking here, actually,

and it's the first time you feel

a bit of sympathy or empathy.

A very little piece.

Here.

Just a little piece, right there.

[Frank] That's it?

♪ The stars were bright above ♪

[Sandy] This is the opening of the film,

which actually the scene takes place at the end of the film.

In this shot you see the watch and the ring.

The ring was given to him by Russell Bufalino the night

of the Frank Sheeran appreciation event

and then the watch was given to him

by Jimmy that same night.

[Sandy] And, you know, it's quite interesting seeing these

at the very beginning because these are obviously,

now he's at the end of his life in the nursing home,

these are his two most treasured possession, aren't they?

And this costume was pretty much

one of the really great photos that we had of Frank Sheeran

in this period of his life

and it just moved us so much

we thought we'd do everything that we could

to do our version of what we saw in the photo.

And it probably was the least expensive costume

in the entire film, wasn't it?

Maximum like $12.50.

Because the components of it are one

of his shirts from the '70s,

a vest from one of his '80s suits,

a pair of horrible fleece track pants,

the elastic waist pulled right up.

[Sandy] Oversized.

[Christopher] You know, and sneakers that velcro down.

Old man sneakers.

Yeah, old man sneakers.

[Sandy] Yet, he still has his shades.

[Christopher] He still has his bling.

Has his shades and his ring and his watch,

and even just by wearing the vest with a dress shirt

and the track pants sort of sets him aside

from the other guys in this nursing home.

Even though he's sort of at the end of his life

and sort of a little bit vulnerable,

he still has a presence there.

Would you say this is your favorite costume, Sandy?

It's so funny because

I mean, how many thousands of costumes did we do?

And we spent hours and hours and hours in fittings

with all of our actors, especially Bob,

and this one took about five minutes.

But it kinda says such a lot, really.

[Christopher] I think it's absolutely my favorite.

And it's so quiet, it's such a quiet thing.

It's not our showgirls, but it's very moving.

[Frank] When I was young,

I thought house painters painted houses.

[laughs] What did I know?

I think the biggest challenge on The Irishman

was the volume of it and wrapping our heads

around these many decades that we costumed.

Yes, the sheer scale of it,

but anything's possible, we achieved it didn't we?

Absolutely.

Should be the album cover.