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Q&A with ’Enchanted’ costume designer Mona May

For the new Disney film “Enchanted,” costume designer Mona May had to create costumes that help the characters transform from the animated world to the real one.

Although the costume designer’s credits include both iconic fashion films such as “Clueless,” as well as CGI- and special effects–laden films such as “The Haunted Mansion” and “Stuart Little 2,” she faced a new set of challenges in designing the costumes for “Enchanted.”

May had to work with the film’s animators to achieve a seamless transition from the two-dimensional fairy tale world of a Disney princess to modern-day New York. She then had to work with the film’s visual-effects department to translate her costumes from a live-action character to a CGI-created dragon.

Costume designer Mona May is bringing her flair in design to the latest Disney film, “Enchanted,” which opened on Nov. 21.

Best known for designing the trend-setting film “Clueless,” May has been applauded for her ability to set trends and translate fashion to the big screen. With more than 12 years of design experience, her reacute;sumeacute; includes films such as “Never Been Kissed,” “The Wedding Singer,” “A Night at the Roxbury,” “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” “The Haunted Mansion,” “8MM” and “Stuart Little 2.”

“Fashion has always been my passion in a way,” May said. “It’s a great journey to play with this and kind of have the ability to bring these two worlds of fashion and film together.”

Born in India, May is of German and Polish descent and grew up in Berlin. Known for her strong sense of color, European sensibility and ability to put a fashion spin on fantasy, she has created a niche in the world of technology with expertise in 2-D animation and computer-generated design. For “Enchanted,” May worked from both East and West Coasts to design the costumes for the film. She designed in three different mediums. First, costumes were designed for two-dimensional hand-drawn animated characters and then created for the live action worn by real actors. One character, Queen Narissa, was transformed from a human into a dragon utilizing CGI.

The film adds a modern spin to the classic fairy tale. Expect to see some fashion trends filter through to the mainstream as Disney’s newest heroine hits the big screen. The wedding gown worn by the princess-to-be, Giselle, (played by Amy Adams) is already being offered at Disney stores. Dolls, little tiaras and necklaces are also for sale, and May’s dress will be worn by the Giselle character at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks in Anaheim, Calif., and Orlando, Fla., respectively, according to May.

California Apparel News’ Fashion Editor N. Jayne Seward recently sat down with May to discuss her work on “Enchanted.”How did you research to create these new iconic Disney characters for “Enchanted”?

You dive in. You dive into the Disney archives and you watch all the princess movies that you’ve ever seen. What do they look like? What do they wear? What were the colors that they wore? Were there any particular Disney characters that inspired you?

I think it’s more of a blend and looking at them and making sure you’re not repeating something that’s been done—but also [staying] within those realms of the princess. It’s an interesting place to be. You [think] “what bridge do you cross and how far do you go with each element?”“Enchanted” mixes live action and animation. What were some of the challenges?

Every stitch on this movie was a challenge, and yet, this movie was a designer’s dream. To have something like that doesn’t come often in your career because what you’re dealing with here is a Disney classic; you’re dealing with iconic characters that are in your psyche.

We know about the princess, we know about the prince, we know about the evil queen. So how do you reinvent these characters? It’s a huge responsibility, and when I got the script and I met with the director, it was very interesting because I wanted to bring some fashion into it. I wanted to bring something fresh. But I also had some restrictions of working with characters that have to come from a two-dimensional world.

In the beginning, I had to design the costumes with the animators. I had to sit down and work with them as they were designing the characters based on the actors. What are they going to wear? How is that going to translate into the three-dimensional world? It’s very different to draw something flat in an outline with very few details and make that walk and move and breathe in the New York City streets.

That was the biggest challenge—but also the most amazing experience, you know, to do that, to really dig deep and find out “How do you make that happen?” How do you bring fashion? How do you bring the animated character proportions to the film? And how do you mix it up so that it still feels fresh, but yet Disney-esque, that it is another classic. Did you try to merge modern-day trends into the look of the classic movie?

Absolutely. You want to appeal to the audience, too. You want to show something fresh.

Another element to this yet-complicated puzzle is how do you bring the modern? How do I marry the magical and the real? I think the best example of that kind of marrying of the styles and blending of the fashion and the Disney-esque iconic look is really Queen Narissa, the evil queen, played by Susan Sarandon. Coming from a fashion background and always pushing for something new, I didn’t bring pictures or drawings and ideas to the table about the evil queen wearing a gown. I went straight for fashion. I started going into Thierry Mugler territory of the 1980s and John Galliano—really pushing for something fresh.

If you really dive into the psychology of this evil queen, who owns the world and has all the money and all the power in the world, she would be going to fashion shows in Paris. She entertains and probably has the best fabrics and has any kind of money to buy anything. I thought, why not make her so cool and kind of so modern, yet always think “Disney-esque”? So, when she arrives in New York City—ha!—she looks fabulous.

Kevin [Lima, the director] liked the idea of doing something fresh and different and more slick and modern. How did you transform the animated character Giselle into a “real” person?

If you close your eyes and think of an animated princess, what do you remember? You remember a tiny waist, you remember big sleeves and a poofy skirt. So, those are the guidelines you’ve got to start with, but then you have to remember you have to dress a live human actress that has a normal waist and normal hips andarms. So, what do you do, what you work with? The proportions. For example, in this case, the director, Kevin Lima, wanted to make sure that this character, when it comes out in New York City in present time, she looks like the animated character. So I worked very closely with the proportions and created the big sleeves on a human. If you see the movie, those sleeves are big—they are probably larger than her head. The skirt, the petticoat and the metal hoop underneath is probably bigger than [the costumes in the film] “The King and I.” I don’t think there is a bigger skirt around that’s ever been made. She couldn’t really move freely in New York City, that’s how big it was, but that created her tiny waist. So we really have this character that’s now talking and walking and breathing in New York City but looks like an animated doll. How did you create the prince costume?

What was interesting about his character too was to make his body, his physique, appear, again, animated. We actually built a chest pad for him, so the chest was also padded, so you get this roundness of the chest and again a small waist. We also gave him a butt pad and crotch enhancement. He really had this very kind of animated, cartoony physique. Stately, prince, puffed. His hair was puffy, the sleeves were puffy, the chest was puffy. He really looks ridiculous every time he walks to the street, and meanwhile he’s also singing.

But all fun aside, what’s really important is to make sure that these characters are not ridiculous, they’re not jokes, because you want to make sure, again, that these are iconic characters. You want to make sure the prince looks handsome, even in this crazy outfit. I think I did an amazing job because he does look gorgeous [and] she looks beautiful. What process did you use to transform the evil Queen Narissa into a CGI dragon ?

I worked with another set of artists, the CGI designers, for the dragon. I showed them the design of the crown so they could use it in creating the horns on the dragon. They used the texture that I already picked and the colors of the costumes to create that into CGI, so when it morphed from the human body into the CGI dragon, you know that that came from [the queen’s costume]. So, it’s a lot of elements, a lot of details to work with to be sure it’s the same feeling through all the different challenging forms.One of the characters in the film is a fashion designer. Tell me about creating her character.

It was really cool to work with that kind of character because she goes out with Patrick Dempsey[’s character], who plays a divorce lawyer. He doesn’t really believe in love that much anymore. His wife left him with a kid. He’s a single dad. So, he’s dating this no-nonsense very New Yorky girl who’s all about business and fashion. The actress herself, Idina Menzel, is quite strong. She’s beautiful, she has a strong jaw and she’s brunette. She already exudes the power. So, it was a fine line how much strength and angular clothes you give her. It was a fine line how to dress her to not make her an overly ball-busting character. I chose to go a little bit softer, using shades of gray and brown rather than black. I gave her a beautiful Chloe chiffon blouse [and] a Chloe jacket. It had quite nice shoulders, but it was shorter. I gave her a beautiful pair of slacks and Manolo Blahniks. So there was strength but also softness to her. How do the costumes in the film reflect the character development of Giselle?

Her journey is quite interesting in the film because when she comes to this world, she is in this crazy gown and this very animated-proportion costume, but as she stays in our world, she changes. In her costumes through the film, she sheds this animated look. When she changes for the first time into the next outfit, she makes a dress out of a curtain. And it’s already different. It has an empire waist with a cap sleeve, but she can move much better in New York City—but [it’s] still very much of a princess look. The next gown that she makes, again, she’s getting more and more of an understanding of New York City. She makes another dress from Patrick Dempsey’s little daughter’s bedspread fabric. That dress is already shorter. It’s a cute swing skirt, it’s a little bit off the shoulder. Again, there’s change. There’s softness, there’s a more-modern girl in there. You see that New York has influenced her somewhat.

And then the final kind of point in the film is when she arrives at this ball, and it’s a completely modern dress. [It’s] a gown, but it’s completely fitted to her body. The color is very sophisticated. It’s a gray/lavender. There’s no nonsense to that dress. That was the most wonderful thing to design. It was very hard to pick the color to find a shade that would make her soft, always the princess, but also very modern and kind of serious. She understands this world. She understands love and disappointment and pain. She has shed all this poofiness and silliness.

Translating the Trends

The big screen has sparked many fashion trends. Mona May launched a return to girly fashion when “Clueless” debuted at the height of grunge. Here is a look at how the designer incorporated fashion into her work on “Enchanted.”

Most movies are released a year after they are filmed. How do you predict the fashion trends to be on target when the film is released?

I think as anybody who’s into fashion, you have to look into the future—what are the mills predicting two years ahead. What’s going on on the runways, what’s going on in the fashion magazines—usually European Collezionis. I travel a lot, so I get to see what people are wearing in Berlin, what people are wearing in Tokyo, London, what’s on the streets of New York and Los Angeles—the big cities.

I think also very important is you have to look within yourself because I think we all have our own take on things, a unique take. For example, in my case, there’s a thread of Mona May through all the films, so there’s something unique to my point of view on fashion and how I see things, how I predict. It’s definitely different than how other designers do it. I have a European upbringing. I think my style is fashion-forward but also classic in a way. How do you put the Mona May stamp on a film, especially when you are meeting the design criteria for the character and director?

I think that it’s my nature. It’s my style. It’s my art in a way. Each painter has their own brush strokes or colors they use and the way that they paint the picture. I think that I’m known for color. I love color, and I think it’s really important in telling a story.

Because I have a fashion design background, I know how to build clothes. I know how they should fit. I’m very good with proportion, so I can hide any imperfection on an actor. And I’m also a good psychologist, in a way. Because foremost, when you’re making a film, you want to dive into the character. You want to find out who they are, what they do, where they sleep, what they breathe, where they eat. Do you expect to create any fashion trends from the movie?

Princess dresses are always in fashion. I think that we are already creating something that’s completely new because we are creating the new image of these characters. I would hope that there would be a lot of Queen Narissa costumes for Halloween! I think she’s quite fabulous. I think there’s something in the transformation of Giselle into the modern clothes. There’s something about being sweet but being modern at the same time that’s really kind of timeless and on the pulse right now, and I think that’s where the fashion is going. Personal style is about keeping with who you are. What’s great about this character, she becomes a real girl from this very cartoony, completely naiuml;ve person. She meets the prince and the next day they are getting married. [She evolved to] really understanding “OK, you know what, it takes a lot to be in love; it takes a lot to keep a relationship.”

I think there are so many layers to this that I hope that’s what interests people and that’s what gets copied and emulated.