'Cruella's' heightened haute couture shows designer Jenny Beavan's genius

When you spend 16 weeks preparing for a 14-week shoot, you know the result is going to be spectacular, especially when the costume designer is 10-time Oscar nominee Jenny Beavan. She's won twice for Room with a View and Mad Max: Fury Road.

OBE-awarded Beavan was tasked with creating the clothing spectacle for Cruella, the original story of the animated classic, 101 Dalmations. Disney cast the two Emmas - Stone and Thompson, as the young Cruella De Vil and her nemesis, The Baroness, respectively, in a film that ultimately results in Stone's twisted fashion designer, lusting after the pelts of adorable puppy Dalmatians.

"It was a massive undertaking," notes the Brit costume designer, talking from the UK via Zoom. "It's about fashion. It's about clothes. It's a dense script. You see a complete arc of Cruella's journey from being a young, rebellious kid who enjoys attire, to a fully fledged, very individual type of fashion designer."

To create the 47 looks for Emma Stone's character, the costume designer arrived at the star's LA home with 10 suitcases. "We'd never met, but Emma Stone is a wonderful human being," Beavan notes of the La-La Land Oscar winner. "We set up in her garage, ordered a very jolly lunch, and did the fitting in her kitchen," she comments as though it's everyday-normal.

"We had a great session. She has the ability to embody and own the clothes you put on her. It was very exciting going from 20-year-old Estella to the last looks that turn her into Cruella De Vil, and as we were trying them on, she was collaborating."

Says Stone, who's also a producer on the film, "The character is so intoxicating. How much of Cruella is in Estella, and how much of Estella is in Cruella?"

Out of that casual though intense exploration of the look Cruella would embody, was born the spectacular red gown built on the bones of a cheap dress Beavan picked up in Beverly Hills. "The colour was great, she looked marvelous in it. At one point I thought, 'This could work. She looks so good'.

"In the film, the dress plays at a pivotal moment, created from one of the Baroness's dresses that Estella has seen in an artist vintage store in Portobello. It's a deconstruction - the bust from the Baroness's original design, the rest cut into strips using fabric from a massive stole. It had to have credibility and impact.

"At times, the whole garment table was surrounded with young stitchers frantically stitching 5,056 petals onto Cruella's car dress, taking up half of the design studio at Shepperton Studios."

Beavan took inspiration from the Met Gala, Dior, Balenciaga, and old magazines of the period. "Vogue is available online. For the Baroness I went high fashion. Emma Thompson has a stunningly good figure and loves wearing clothes like this, which also brings something to the whole costume. If someone just stands in it - they just stand in it. But she embodies it."

For the young Cruella, Vivienne Westwood and Galliano were inspirations. Beavan had to create two fashion lines for the Baroness's 18th-century ball which had "a Marie Antoinette influence. The guests are 18th-century with '60s jewellery, hair and makeup".

No matter how prepared one is, shooting brings unforeseen challenges. "We shot a scene one November night, freezing cold, outside in Greenwich, right by the Thames where it's colder than anywhere. They had a fountain, which blew in the wind so every-thing got quite wet, including the dancers. It was quite an event." She chuckles.