The ‘king’ of modern dark cinematography, Guillermo del Toro, this time decided to combine victorian mystery and elegant romantism in order to give birth to various characters — all opposite from each other but yet attracted to one another. No need to mention that a this goal is difficult to achieve and most of the job was probably on the shoulders of a costume designer — Kate Hawley, who never worked with historial times before (‘Pacific Rim’, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ and a very much expected ‘Suicide Squad‘). All that actually explains why working on ‘Crimson Peak’ was basically a fresh breath for her.
It is truly impressive how deep and accurate was the approach to every character of the film. It is all about how much attention you pay to details: the better you look, the more you know about what’s happening inside the characters. For instance, each costume and every detail of ‘Crimson Peak’ is based in the end of 1980s – beginning of 1900s, however, Lucille is old-fashioned, so she is wearing dresses famous in 1870s.
The Victorian era was the era of ‘mourning’ fashion, and that is why in its canons the main character is wearing a tape of her dead mother and her jewelry. Meanwhile, er outfits are embellished with flowers made of antique velvet, and mourning victorian lace combined with vintage accessories. On the other side, we can easily see that Kate Hawley was also influenced by esthethics of fall collections by Alexander McQueen and Oscar de la Renta, also gothic and romantic. Kate basically invented her own visual language, some symbolic colour code, so each detail in the movie is a part of it. Lucille, for example, has some intertwining branches covered with leaves on her dress — a symbol of autumn, predecessor of winter — time of death.
The main character — young Edith Cushing — is, according to Guillermo del Toro, a strong representative of ‘light’ side. She represents the creation beginning, love. Edith’s dress is blooming and full of butterflies. Flowers mean fertility, antipode of death.
Everything Katy Hawley created for Peak is about decadence and exaggeration. It is ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte plus ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ by Caspar David Friedrich. Sunny, prosperous Buffalo and collapsing cold Allerdale Hall — they are inseparably connected to movie heroes and it is showing with a fine and delicate work of costume creators.
The Fashion Crow 
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