Costume designer Trish Summerville Reveals Secrets from 'Hunger Games' Sequel Set

MTV News chats with Trish Summervile about dressing "daring dames," Katniss' wedding dress, Finnick's parade outfit (was it too 'Chippendales' for a PG-13 movie?), her favorite costume for the movie and much much more! Here are some highilghts

MTV: I’d like to talk about a few pieces in particular, starting with the wedding dress. The description in the book is a little different, so what was your jumping-off point?

Summerville: Well, for the wedding dress, at one point, I was terrified because I think in the book it says there are 18 dresses that come. And I thought, “Oh my god. How are we going to get 18 wedding dresses that fit this?” In the script, with the time frame, we shot one dress. For that, a couple of years ago, I found this designer, Tex Saverio. who’s from Jakarta. I was really drawn to the designs that he did and just hoped one day this would be something. I thought, honestly, I thought more like, I’ll do an editorial where I can run that, because you can be much more free and extreme. When this project came along, and I knew that we needed this wedding dress, he was kind of one of my go-to people.

We had some Skype meetings, and I had an illustrator do an illustration taking a few different parts of dresses he’d done and compiled them together with the color scheme we needed and changed up fabrications for our practical reasons. He and I had these Skype meetings back and forth, and he was so great and so fast. He’d be like, “Let me sketch something, and I’ll call you back.” And a few hours later, I’d get an email of some kind of modified sketch.

[I explained] to him how I needed the cage to kind of have the inflection of fire going up around her face and doing crystals on that and what color the crystals should be and then having these laser-cut feathers put on, so that it’s subtle… And then with that, the fabrication of the skirt could be — we needed all this volume, but we needed it to rise when she starts to spin around. And that was a little bit perplexing for him because his dresses are so many layers, and he does a very couture type of work… It’s not really for function. It’s just for your day and beauty and a gown. And he was just great. And then on the first day, we tried the dress on her, and we had her spin, and it was like this “Ahhhhhhhh.”

MTV: And Finnick's tribute parade outfit is going to be a little different as well? Not just a strategically placed knot of fishing net?

Summerville: You know, we're PG-13. [laughs] We went to Suzanne to see if this is something we have a little liberty to change, because in your mind, you can imagine that as grand as you can, but to try to take that on to film, it doesn't work sometimes. What we ended up deciding on was keeping true to the net. It's a fishing net. It's made of gold fabric. It's knitted-together net, and I made him kind of a kilt. It's more like a gladiator-type skirt, so he has that on, and it's belted, and he has the shells on his neck, which he keeps the whole time. My backstory between Sam and I was that Annie — who he had to leave — it's this necklace that Annie's made for him so that she's always with him when he's away. He keeps it on the whole time ... He was really relieved he has a longer skirt, and he kind of has tights underneath and kind of substantial boots. He's bare-chested, and he worked really hard to get into amazing shape ... I think it's much more interesting than just the net. It would have been a little too Chippendales.

Read the rest of the artcile here

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MTV

EW Interview with Trish Summerville

Check out this nifty interview with Trish Summerville, the costume designer on Catching Fire. She talks about her inspirations, career, and her take on the Peacekeeper uniforms.

Entertainment Weekly: How have the past 18 months or so been for you?Trish Summerville: [It's] been a little hectic. I guess I kind of went from Dragon, which I was on from start to finish — including the H&M line — almost 18 months, and from that right into doing the pilot for the Showtime show Ray Donovan, which I just got to see. They had a screening and a premiere, and it was a great time. It looks really good. I’m really excited. And I kind of went from that into Catching Fire. It’s been great, it’s been a lot of work but I like to work a lot, so it’s been really nice. It’s been a really great whirlwind and I feel really, really fortunate because the last few projects that I’ve been on, even though they’ve been a bit challenging at times, I feel really fulfilled, and I’ve gotten to work with such a great group of people. Especially when you look at all of the directors and actors involved.  

Was there a person or a designer or a look that really got you interested in design?
Oh, well, I don’t know. That’s so long ago! I think from junior high up I knew I wanted to do something kind of in fashion, but I wasn’t really sure what it would be. I think then, it’s like, I really followed, if I was thinking like clothing lines, it would have been a lot like Blondie. I was really into Blondie, and Billy Idol, and I think it was a lot of being creatively driven by a lot of musicians. At that time I didn’t even know I would work with musicians, like I didn’t even know if [people] really did that. I thought, “Oh, you know, they probably just get a lot of their own clothes.”
Between Blondie and just looking at anything that Jean Paul Gaultier did, that’s when I realized, “Oh my God, there’s such a big world out there of so many creative looks, and opinions, and what is considered fashion.” Because, you know, I’m from New Orleans, so it’s like, we have our own kind of crazy characters that live there, but there was nothing like that. And I was in the punk scene when I was young. I kind of went from mod to a bit punk. I think it was just part of the trends, of Blondie and Gaultier, seeing those people and what they did made me realize. And Vivienne Westwood, because at that time I didn’t know Vivienne Westwood, who was responsible for a lot of the Sex Pistols’ fashion. I think that just kind of prompted me into thinking outside of the box, what was considered the norm and what was considered fashion, what was more like street fashion. I was into it, and musicians.
Who are your inspirations these days?
There are some designers that I really, really love and am inspired by, and aren’t always applicable for things. For the last, I guess it’s almost two years, I’ve been really obsessed with Iris van Herpen. The stuff she does is so groundbreaking and technical, and architectural, that she really just blows my mind. And she’s so young. The techniques she comes up with and all this 3-D fabrication she’s doing, and holograms, and just the materials that she’s using, and the structure that she does, the applications, and the shoes. I just think she’s really phenomenal. She did a pair of shoes she called the Fang Shoe, which I was obsessed with. I know she just did a water dress, but there was quite a bit before that.
Was there one look you created that you would say changed everything for you?
One of the funny ones, I guess, that got talked about was the David LaChapelle video for Christina Aguilera’s ”Dirty.” [The chaps] got a lot of attention. And it was just so funny because everyone kept calling them “ass-less chaps,” but in general, chaps don’t have a bum. Good or for bad, that definitely got a lot of attention. When I look at what I think was kind of pivotal, it’s Lisbeth Salander’s look from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I wanted it to be really authentic and it was very genuine, as opposed to when you do a lot of music stuff it has a lot of flash, it has to make a statement and be bold. Whereas what I really enjoy about film is that you have this character development. It’s about those authenticities of what that character would really do and how they function every day in life. It’s not just about fashion. Like with Lisbeth, we went fully for function, the function of her clothes and what she could find, and how she would really wear it in her life. You know, the drop-crotch pants with the tight-fitted leather jacket, the fingerless gloves, and the taped-up combat boots. I think was a really iconic look.
What was the last look that you designed?
The last thing I designed would have been, I guess in Catching Fire, some of the looks in that are pretty intense, very colorful, so that was great fun because it took me completely into another world that’s not particularly my aesthetic. I like a lot of muted tones and unsaturated, washed out… and that was great because it propelled my mind to think in a really different manner because it is quite over the top. It’s kind of futuristic, but it’s not sci-fi on any level. It’s really bold and really colorful and quite campy at times, then it gets really serious. I tried to bring a little bit of darkness to it, you’re seeing a world that was already created in a book. You want to try to be really respectful to the writers, and you want to be respectful to the fan base, but then you also have to figure out what works visually and what you can bring to it as well. [And] I did the second installation so there’s certain things you want to be respectful about for the characters from the first one, but then also show a period of growth and transition.
I love the Peacekeepers that I did. I wanted to make them look a little more menacing, kind of insect-like. I draw a lot in my inspiration boards from different projects, a lot from nature, and animals, and insects. I just think that there’s so much there, in silhouettes and colors. The colors, they’re amazing, when you look in the insect world, and at in animals and nature. I wanted to make these Peacekeepers… after the first film, I felt like they needed to be bumped up a bit, because of what was going on in the second film with the rebellion that’s starting. I felt that we needed to show a transition, that the Capitol is stepping up its forces and making it much more intimidating and fearsome. So I went for this sort of spiny, praying mantis sort of look for them. 

About your inspiration board, can you tell me what kinds of things are on it and how they inspire you?
For each project I do a new inspiration board. For Catching Fire I think we had probably 30, 40, 60 inspiration boards, because I did them for every district and every kind of character we had. On my personal board I have some photographs of native Americans, the Maasai tribe up, which I love, the east Indian painted elephants used for weddings and ceremonies.
Whether it’s for my designs or for my own aesthetic pleasure I’m really drawn to, tribal, native, cultural ways of dress. They’re so interesting and intricate, and generally have beadwork and metalwork. I also like the ideas that there’s this traditional, ceremonial fashion, but also this function. Like, I just recently purchased an image from a water.org benefit and they do this hike up Kilimanjaro to raise consciousness about clean water. There was this image that I just loved, and it was probably 20 Maasai women, in white beading and accessories, and I just loved that they all have on contemporary shoes. People go there and trade things for their jewelry and their cloth and things like that, and so this image is just all these beautiful Maasai women in traditional garb, but then they’re all wearing sneakers and flip flops. I like that. I like that they’ll make bracelets out of Coca-Cola cans. They take what they have and then make it functional and use very interesting forms of adornment.
What else is on your personal board right now?
I have an image of an Iris van Herpen dress.
How does that inspire you?
That one inspires me just because, it looks very insect-like. It’s so modern but it’s really structural, and I love the silhouette of it. It’s very extreme. I have some [pictures of] Haider Ackermann designs. I think he’s really genius and really chic, and his clothes are quite beautiful and really sexy. I have pictures of rocks and stones because I’m interested in doing a jewelry line. I’ve been doing some sketches, and on my table I have a lot of loose stones and rocks. There’s a piece of barbed wire from a bracelet I made. And then, on the funny side of me, there are some inspirational quotes that I put up from time to time. I have a picture of Obama and the Dalai Lama, some family photos.
What are you working on next?
I’m working on a movie, hopefully next year. It’s under wraps still. I’m crossing my fingers it’s shooting in [Los Angeles], which would be amazing. I live in Los Angeles. I hear the talk of Old Hollywood and how everything was shot here, but now so much stuff is shot outside of town.

Source: Entertainment Weekly 

Catching Fire Gets A New Costume Designer

After successfully transforming Rooney Mara into Lisbeth Salander, wardrobe designer Trish Summerville has signed on to oversee the costumes for the Hunger Games sequel.
Fans of the Suzanne Collins book know that Summerville — who started her career as a costume assistant on films like Girl, Interrupted and later served as personal stylist to Christina Aguilera  – will be responsible for conjuring up Katniss’ wedding dress, which looks at first to be standard issue bridal attire but eventually goes up in flames to reveal a feathered (and winged) mockingjay gown.

Summerville’s heroine chic costumes for the 2011 adaptation of Dragon Tattoo earned her an award from Hollywood’s Costume Designers Guild and the opportunity to create a spinoff clothing collection for H&M. No word on whether the film stylist a fan of the Hunger Games series, but judging from the photo above, she’s clearly no stranger to the side braid.

 Source: EW

We're very sad to see Judianna go, but intrigued to see what Trish Sumerville will offer to Catching Fire!