‘Eileen’ Is an Ode to the ‘50s and ‘60s With Fur Coats and Courrèges Suit Skirts
LONDON — Costume designer Olga Mill calls those in her line of profession the ultimate “internet creepers” when it comes to researching a project and getting every detail correct in a character’s closet.
“I looked at Sears catalogues from the ‘50s. I really went down some rabbit holes on Flickr, looking for family archive photos — there’s folks that will put up their whole family archives and that’s super helpful because you’re getting a non-presentational version of what people look like,” she says.
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Mill wishes there was a Facebook in the ‘50s for her to dive into further research for the upcoming psychological thriller film “Eileen,” based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel.
The film stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eileen and Anne Hathaway as Rebecca, two women who meet at a juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys in the ‘60s in New England.
The introduction of Rebecca’s character sees Eileen going from a mousy back-of-the-scene character to a courageous and dangerous she-wolf.
“You see her in the beginning in a pink coat with a mousy mink fur collar and by the time she leaves, she has a floor-length fur coat. It’s this idea of going from mousy sort of things happening to her to having all this agency and being the violent, aggressive one by the end,” Mill says.
She sourced many of the pieces for the film from a vintage house in upstate New York called Right to the Moon Alice, as well as using Western Costume in Hollywood and contacts she’s made over the years, such as a woman named Terry in New Jersey who she sourced lots of deadstock ‘50s underwear from.
Mill insisted that many of Eileen’s pieces be repeated throughout the film to ground the character and to make her feel like a real person rather than trying to execute a glossed period image that’s so prevalent in dramas set in the past.
For instance, Eileen’s stockings are stretched out and bunched at the ankles and her sweaters carry a visceral itchiness that contains a guttural discomfort of the late ‘50s.
“I really wanted to find a representation of the late ‘50s for Eileen because she’s not somebody that’s in New York with the latest fashions, getting a magazine and going shopping. All of her things are kind of dated because she’s in a small town,” says Mill, explaining that Rebecca’s character comes in as an aspirational breeze to contrast with Eileen’s small town ways.
At first it was tempting for the costume designer to make Rebecca a “character in all bright colors,” but she switched gears to reflect that she’s a woman in a male-dominated workforce.
Rebecca is introduced on screen getting out of a red car wearing a black and white coat with a light icy gray Courrèges skirt suit underneath with a black briefcase and red handbag in hand.
Mills looked to the 1964 romance thriller “Red Desert” starring Monica Vitti for references. For Rebecca, she found a camel shearling coat with white trim that resembles Vitti’s black and white shearling coat with a turned up collar.
“I imagined Rebecca having it [the shearling coat] in college or being a kind of early professional on campus — it’s a slightly counterculture aesthetic,” she says.
As the relationship between Eileen and Rebecca endures, the sartorial dynamics change aesthetically when they’re in private spaces together.
At Rebecca’s house, Eileen overdresses for the occasion, while Rebecca is underdressed in a roll neck and cardigan. But she still holds the power in the scene, according to Mills.
“We built that dress that Eileen wears and we wanted her to feel like a Christmas present. She’s going to Rebecca’s house wanting to be unwrapped and wanting to present herself. Whoever you dress up for always holds power,” Mills says.
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