After the Hunt, Costume Designer Talks Julia Roberts About Costume Inspiration

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Yale University might just be the most fashionable campus in the world – at least in “After the Hunt,” Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, which abounds in Celíne blazers, Totême suits and Lemaire coats. For costume designer Giulia Piersanti, who is also responsible for Celín’s knitwear, dressing the film’s sophisticated books was a no-brainer.

“Blazers are basically a character’s armor in this movie,” says Piersanti. Variety.

In the film, Julia Roberts plays Alma Imhoff, a tenured philosophy professor at Yale whose carefully constructed world begins to crumble when one of her star protégés, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), accuses Alma’s close friend and colleague, Henrik (Andrew Garfield), of sexual assault. Alma, known for her intellectual rigor and fluid control in academic circles, is torn between her loyalty to Hank and the urgent demands for truth and justice in a Tár-style #MeToo settlement.

Roberts plays Alma “with a coldly convincing sardonic edge”, as Variety Owen Gleiberman points this out. When it came to clothing, Piersanti represented this icy, imperious air through muted color palettes, straight cuts, and unbranded pieces. “My general mood board for Ivy League style was focused on timeless elegance and a visually cold and constrained aesthetic.”

In addition to avoiding trends or any sense of “warmth or comfort,” she intentionally didn’t use heels, skirts, dresses, or knits. “I was aiming for a legacy look, intellectual and slightly masculine in its constraint – a wardrobe that didn’t have a lot of comfort or overt femininity.”

Alma’s standout blazers throughout the film are her classic Céline houndstooth jacket and a bold, structured white Totéme jacket, the latter of which is the viewer’s first sartorial introduction to Alma – lounging in a dimly lit cocktail bar, dragging a cigarette as she brazenly debates the morality of Heigle and Aristotle with her subordinates. She imbibes red wine in her $1,000 white suit as casually as she dismisses Hedrick’s accusations of Freud’s Nazism.

“I specifically wanted clean, white lines to make it a beacon in the room,” says Piersanti. It’s a complex dichotomy that makes its dangerous allure palpable from the jump.

But any Roberts fan knows that the Oscar-winning actress herself was one of the first to redefine the power suit — not as corporate armor, but as a symbol of self-mastery. Piersanti’s mood board for Alma included images of Roberts’ iconic costume from the 1990s.

Long before understated luxury had a name, Roberts was pairing double-breasted blazers with silk blouses, open-collar pinstriped pants and tuxedo jackets against bare skin. Her early 90s looks were loose and masculine – Armani shoulders, oversized cuts and androgynous tailoring which are a clear inspiration for Alma’s cool and understated style.

“For all characters, the emphasis was on clean, straight silhouettes and classic, unbranded pieces that suggest inherited intellectual taste, rather than passing fashion,” she says.

If Alma and her daring costumes constitute the core of the film, the rest of the sets of characters are constructed in dialogue with her own, each echoing or resisting her presence.

Maggie’s style is an “evolution of obsessive emulation,” says Piersanti. We see her in younger, looser-fitting versions of Alma’s costume, at one point even wearing a white t-shirt and pants almost identical to a monochrome outfit we see Alma wearing to class at the beginning of the film. Later, as Maggie’s accusations against Henrik reach a boiling point, we see her in clothes that resemble her scruffy and worn outfit, at the end trading cardigans and blazers for a denim jacket that is a clear nod to her denim polo uniform.

Henrik’s style is “classic, casual and worn, a little scruffy,” Piersanti says. “She is someone who relies on her natural beauty and charm, without making any visible effort and this is reflected in her clothes.”

Unlike the buttoned-up suits of his female colleagues, he wears second-hand Levi’s, corduroy blazers and rumpled Oxford shirts designed to disarm and project humility. It is a counterpart to Maggie’s buttoned-up suit, a reflection of her corrupt model of “woke” values ​​which contribute to stifling her intellectual curiosity. At one point, Henrik even points at her, saying, “Your generation is so…tight.” »

Below, discover pieces inspired by “After the Hunt”: