My gorgeous friend Edward K. Gibbon was the costume designer on BBC series The Honourable Woman; Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliant as the Anglo-Israeli businesswoman Nessa Stein, and is currently being hailed as 'the best-dressed woman on TV'. I'm a Gyllenhaal Family fan and so when I bumped into Edward filming his latest project in Shoreditch, this week, I had to ask him what it was like working with Maggie, 'It was an amazing experience, Maggie was so engaged on every level and really collaborative and generous with her talent. We spent a lot of time together; talking, shopping, fitting, trying to work out who Nessa was. Maggie completely threw herself into creating the character putting all vanity aside.'
On creating a modern, power wardrobe for Gyllenhaal's character, Edward added,' Nessa is a very complicated, multi-layered character and how she looked was very important. She is a powerful woman from a very privileged background but also highly cultured and engaged with the world. We never wanted to present a stereotypical version of a powerful woman who may dress to intimidate men. Maggie was keen to keep it much rawer than that and not to disguise the sexuality of the character. She uses clothes like armour to keep a layer between herself and the world, and the story unfolds we see it quite literally being stripped away.'
Edward and I were student flatmates in Manchester, in the olden days, and I am not exaggerating when I say that he changed my life; he was much cooler, cleverer and more cultured than I was - and he worked behind the bar at the Hacienda, so was very good at sorting out the free drinks.
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| Edward in The' Ditch |
Since then Edward has worked on many TV programmes (he did the wardrobe for Channel 4's Skins) and films, and with some brilliant actresses including: Olivia Coleman, Lindsay Duncan, Claire Skinner and Billie Piper - and I'm so pleased that he dressed Maggie Gyllenhaal in a couple of Merkel/Clinton-inspired pant suits.
Who's wardrobe have you been watching?
