Heidi Bivens, Hollywood’s Realest Costume Designer

I moved to New York right out of highschool and while I was in college I started interning for magazines: W, WWD, and Paper. I was working on photoshoots for them, and I was also interested in journalism, but I quickly realized it might be hard to make a good living as a journalist. I think at that time it was like 10 cents a word.

But I was also interested in costumes for film, and in film in general. I was going to school for filmmaking at Hunter College, that was my major. I realized through working for magazines that fashion styling can influence and inform costume design, even though they are completely different worlds. I loved living in New York in the 90s. I’m very nostalgic for that time.

The film and fashion industries were very separate, I didn't really know anybody who was involved in both. But I used to go to the dog run at Washington Square Park and there I met a costume designer, Amy Roth, whose aunt is Ann Roth [Midnight Cowboy, Safe, many Brian DePalma films], one of the most famous costume designers. I just started asking her questions. It wasn’t until I got a break working on Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry’s film, that doors started opening for me.

I had heard about Spring Breakers and asked my agent if she could help me get a meeting, asked a couple people to put in a good word. Harmony and I immediately had a shorthand from growing up in similar circles, being exposed to similar influences. And he’s the kind of person that once he finds someone that he feels good working with he’s not really interested in interviewing like 20 other people.

It’s a fun challenge! Harmony’s not interested in using anything in the films that is technically fashion. Anytime I’ve presented any ideas that include brands or designs that already exist, he’s not interested. He’s said what he does becomes fashion, he doesn’t want to start off using what’s already there.

I didn’t come up with the flame print, Prada’s been doing it in their archives for a long time. But sometimes there is this great timing with fashion, where things are percolating. And then everything can hit at the same time. That’s what happened with The Beach Bum.

When you are thinking about a character’s background, if you’re thinking about every single piece that is there and creating a reason—a where, and a why, and a how—that’s when you can really create authenticity.

With Mid90s, it was important to me to get it right on an almost academic level. I grew up during that time too, and I knew that a majority of the audience would be skaters and that they would be scrutinizing. There were great lengths taken to make sure everything we used in the film was available during 94 or 95. There’s a great search engine online, Skately.com, and you can look up any brand and any year and see their ads from those years. Aaron Meza was a consultant on set, who filmed a lot of the skate videos during that time. We made a list of brands and talked about who would wear which ones. I remember one day I had Ray wearing a Chocolate t-shirt and on top of it he was wearing a World Industries sweatshirt, which were both California brands. But I didn’t know that those brands were beefing in those years, so someone wouldn’t be wearing them together at that time. Aaron caught that. And then Spike Jonze watched the camera test and said, “The jeans should be bigger.”

Anyone who is aware of the style at the time knows it was so specific. People would wear certain brands—that’s how you communicated to the world who you were and what you were into. It was a big deal!

On Euphoria and on The Beach Bum, my research involved looking for images of real people, snapping pictures of people on the street, finding random images of people who aren’t famous. I try to find examples of real world people.

And even sometimes just to find pictures of real people! On Euphoria, Hunter Schafer’s character is transgender, and to find images online of a fashion-forward trans teenage girl, even a year ago, there wasn’t much. Hunter is a model, so a lot of the pictures I found online were actually of her. Being able to reference real people is really important.

When we first started out, I had envisioned Jules as like an anime character, that is sort of how she was written in the script. She’s really into Sailor Moon and there was this idea that she should be like eye candy—candy colors and tennis skirts and big shoes. In the beginning of the show her character really looks to men for validation and it’s important to her to have attention from men, but as the story progresses she starts to give less fucks about what guys think, and she experiences love in a different way. I think she’s surprised by that, and starts to come into her own. Then we don’t see these candy anime looks anymore.

In the first fitting she was just happy to be wearing cute clothes, and once she got really into the head of the character, she was able to access a lot more feeling and opinion about what Jules should be wearing.

And with Zendaya, I didn’t set out to do what we’ve been doing with her look. The first meeting I had with her she came in wearing a white tank top and some Re/Done jeans. And I remember thinking, “You look good just as you are,” and feeling so inspired for her character Rue. She feels non-binary to me too, in alot of ways, which is something that’s being explored on the show.

I’m not really that clued into what’s next. I feel like this idea of people dressing for themselves, the idea of new eccentricity, not following trends. People creating their own style and their own trends for themselves. More of that. Individuality.

Moondog was one of them. Jules and Rue on Euphoria. There were no real rules in the approach with them, and when your creativity is boundless in terms of where you can go to in your mind to glean ideas, that’s the most exciting.

This show is unlike anything that’s been on television. I think it’s really going to surprise people.