If you don’t know Arianne Phillips by name, you’ll certainly be familiar with her work. The Oscar-nominated costume designer has lent her skills to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Don’t Worry Darling, A Single Man and, now, A Complete Unknown.
This latest triumph saw Timothée Chalamet transform beyond recognition into legendary singer Bob Dylan, not only learning to sing and play a host of instruments but, thanks to Philips, embodying his enigmatic demeanour via 67 costume changes.
Key to this metamorphosis – and to Dylan’s actual wardrobe – was Levi’s denim. “This film takes place over four years, and one thing that I noticed consistently is that he wore denim throughout our story,” Phillips tells RUSSH. “I wanted to be as authentic as possible. So I reached out to the Levi’s team having worked with them multiple times – most notably on the costumes for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” she recalls. “Luckily for me, they put me in touch with Paul O'Neill, who runs the vintage division [...] and he was able to vet the denim.”
Together, the duo called on Levi’s network of vintage collectors and resellers, painstakingly assessing every piece of clothing that made it onto screen. The jeans worn by Dylan as he posed for the cover of his album, Another Side Of Bob Dylan, for example, had been altered by his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo, to include panels that would allow the denim to fit over his boots. This key detail, of course, was replicated in Chalamet’s wardrobe, and the pair made for the film are now being released as part of a special Levi’s capsule collection.
The entire film takes place over just four years – an incredibly tight timeline for a biopic of this kind. Still, Dylan evolved considerably over this period, both musically and personally – a change that was closely matched by his wardrobe. “Bob Dylan's style, when we meet him as a 19 year old, is very much in line with his hero, Woody Guthrie, the American folk singer who he seeks out,” she says. “And as he gets older [...] his style starts to have more confidence and he wants to be less like someone else and more like himself.”
“You see his silhouette, initially, is very baggy – the Baker boy hat, the baggier dungarees, and the American Pendleton shirt. And then in the mid-60s it's a slimmer silhouette: he’s wearing that very recognisable 501 jean, cowboy boots, and suede jackets that were very specific to him." So recognisable, in fact, that a rendition of this jacket forms the second part Levi's A complete Unknown collection.
Dylan's character arc culminates in 1965, with his iconic performance at Newport Folk festival – the first time the musician had ever performed with electric instruments. On the cusp of global stardom, Dylan’s style became more heavily influenced by British musicians like The Beatles and The Kinks. “His hair gets longer, his jeans get very slim,” says Phillips. “He's famous. He's an international star, and he has that real kind of archetype of what we know today as a rock and roll silhouette."
Philip's collaborator through it all was Timothée Chalamet. "It was a lot of time and patience and focus, and he was up for it every time," she recalls. Between learning multiple instruments — guitar, harmonica, piano, and, of course, singing — costuming became a key component to developing his character. "He is very committed actor in a way that you can only dream somebody would be," Philips says. "We had so many fittings, and you don't always get it right in a fitting. Sometimes you have to do it a second or third time. And we made a lot of his costumes — most of his costumes. So each time you make a jacket, you need two or three fittings to get it right, and then we have to age the costume and break it down so it looks lived in, and then we try it on again. You know, it's, it's a process, and he was up for it."
