‘Elizabeth is almost a series of fleeting images,’ says Kate Hawley. ‘She’s ephemeral, dreamlike.’ Kate is an Emmy-nominated costume designer who has dressed characters of stage (Royal New Zealand Ballet, the New Zealand Opera, among others) and screen, and she’s describing her recent collaboration with director Guillermo del Toro. Their work, Frankenstein, has been one of Netflix’s standout successes this year. And Elizabeth, the elusive character Kate is setting out, is Lady Elizabeth Harlander, as played by British actor Mia Goth.
‘She sees the beauty of Nature and its imperfections,’ Kate explains of Elizabeth, the fiancée of William Frankenstein who catches the eye of his brother, Baron Victor Frankenstein. The movie is told through two narratives: Victor’s and Jacob Elordi’s Creature. Kate’s costuming plays a key role in both. ‘In Victor’s story, we see her reflected through his eyes, a madonna, an angel, and a mother. In the Creature’s story, we see her reflected through the Creature’s eyes. We see this most clearly in the wedding scene. Guillermo wanted it to be the Creature’s wedding, and for Elizabeth to look like his bride. The wedding dress mirrors the Creature’s bandages and the skeletal architecture of the rib cage. It’s constructed in layers like an anatomy wax model.’
The Wade necklace above, on Mia Goth, and below, close up, was created by Tiffany & Co. designer Paulding Farnham in about 1900.
Fine jewellery — specifically precious Tiffany & Co. creations — played a key role in Kate’s designs for Frankenstein. It is only the fourth film that the jewellery house worked with. The others are similarly sweeping epics: The Great Gatsby (2013), Death on the Nile (2022) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). ‘We don't normally do this,’ says Christopher Young, vice president and creative director of the American maison’s patrimony department. Kate and Christopher were introduced by Steven Newman, head of the Netflix Photo Studio. ‘Our involvement with Frankenstein made sense for many reasons, but the core purpose was due to the high elevation of Kate's designs,’ Christopher says. ‘Once I realised Kate’s enormous vision, I gave her full access to our archives. We never offer that.’
Once through the doors of the archive department, Kate honed in on creations by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) — a polymath man who had, before designing jewellery, furnished interiors, manufactured vibrant lamps and blown glass. He was the son of the company’s founder, Charles Tiffany, and he presented his first collection of jewellery in 1904. Comfort Tiffany was also a collaborator: he worked with the family company’s enamel artist, Julia Munson, in order to bring his fantastical vision into three-dimensional being and scouted one of his chief designers, Meta Overbeck, straight from art school. They worked, together, out of a studio in New Jersey — a space filled with inspirational materials, plants and natural objects that soon gave shape, colour and detail to rare gems.
Among them, and now on view in Frankenstein: a tourmaline ring, designed by Overbeck. The lustrous green gem — liquid to the eye — set in gold, was cast to resemble a wild vine. ‘It looks like she has a giant beetle on her hand,’ says Kate. ‘Frankenstein is a world where beauty and the grotesque sit together.’
Elsewhere in the film, there is a necklace strung from red lava stone beads that dates to 1870. Hanging from it now is a crucifix pendant, a new creation, made to sketches by Overbeck and a Tiffany & Co. cross from another era, and the 1900 Wade Family necklace, a collier in diamond, gold and platinum that has a ‘a lace quality’. ‘The workmanship is just extraordinary,’ says Kate. ‘I underestimated the transformative effect something like the Wade necklace has on the set and the wearer. When we put it on Mia, and it fit perfectly, it was really a Cinderella moment.’
It was important that these museum-quality pieces worked with the truly ravishing costumes. ‘Thematically, organically and within the colour palette they all supported the storytelling and echoed so perfectly the language of the world that Guillermo was creating,’ says Kate. ‘Having Tiffany & Co. as a collaborator was an honor that was deeply moving for my entire crew. It was a recognition of our craft and added a new artistic dimension. Tiffany’s jewellery became its own creative contribution, similar to hair design, makeup, wardrobe, sets and props, and was integral to completing the design space. It was not just an accessory but an essential element specifically to Elizabeth’s character, enhancing the colour palette and overall interpretation of her world.’
