Marry Me’s Costume Designer on Dressing Jennifer Lopez

“While you work with any person who’s on the degree of Jennifer [Lopez], you need to carry your A-game each second of each day,” says Caroline Duncan, the ultratalented costume designer who stored J Lo wanting fabulous in each body of her new rom-com, “Marry Me.” “She cares a lot in regards to the visible, and he or she has an actual feeling for it.” It was a thrill, Duncan tells POPSUGAR, to “collaborate with somebody who has such an understanding of match and storytelling by way of clothes . . . Jennifer is an incredible choreographer of all moments.”

Duncan was tasked with an fascinating problem when she joined the crew of “Marry Me.” The costume designer, who has labored on productions helmed by Ava DuVernay, M. Evening Shyamalan, and Steven Spielberg, amongst others, was given the meta process of dressing a fictional pop star performed by some of the well-known nonfictional pop stars of our time.

“The character isn’t Jennifer however has plenty of overlapping traits with Jennifer . . . so she introduced a lot to the desk by way of the nuances of the personal life versus the general public lifetime of a pop star,” says Duncan. Though Duncan has had ample expertise as a fancy dress designer, “Marry Me” challenged her to assume extra like a stylist, since Lopez’s character Kat Valdez can be dressed by a stylist. “It is a sort of a meta expertise as a fancy dress designer,” Duncan says. “I labored carefully with Jennifer’s stylists, who had been so useful and beneficiant in catching me in control in what it could be prefer to be a stylist for a pop star, which is a really completely different job than what I usually do. It was actually enjoyable to put on a special hat.”

The swoonworthy wedding gown Lopez wears as Kat Valdez is so spectacular that even the film cannot wait to disclose it — the title credit aren’t even over after we’re gasping at its magnificence.

“The thought for the marriage gown was to have a centerpiece for Kat’s efficiency, her stage wedding ceremony, her public wedding ceremony, that may really feel half performative costume, half essentially the most exaggerated and romantic Cinderella wedding ceremony robe anybody has ever worn — after which additionally supremely aspirational, as solely a pop star would ever have a necessity for a gown of this nature,” Duncan says. The gown they selected was one which Lopez had noticed in designer Zuhair Murad‘s runway bridal present. “There have been a couple of clothes that she liked from that assortment, however this was the one that basically spoke to us,” Duncan says. “The truth that the gown wasn’t white was an enormous think about why all of us fell in love with it. It is a rose gold with champagne notes, and it felt prefer it was for a girl who has been married a couple of instances and a lady who’s getting married underneath lights and on the stage. There was simply an additional component of blush and sparkle.”

Past “blush and sparkle,” the glittering fairytale robe brings some main drama. “The drama of it was actually a part of the attract and a part of what we gravitated to after we landed on it as a workforce,” says Duncan. “And the amount of it — so dramatic. The gown is comprised of over 9 layers of horse hair and tulle and has a 25-foot practice. The veil itself is one thing like 20 toes lengthy.”

It seems Kat Valdez’s gown has some metaphorical layers hidden among the many many literal layers of tulle. “It is also actually conjuring what is occurring to her,” Duncan tells POPSUGAR. “The gown actually takes over the marriage. After which when her fairytale does not occur and he or she marries a stranger publicly, there’s one thing very stifling and claustrophobic in regards to the gown — like she will’t get away from the general public’s face; she’s within the largest gown that is ever been worn.”

The forged and crew agreed that the marriage gown was a showstopper, however it additionally required plenty of consideration. “The practicality of the gown, no person liked,” Duncan says, laughing. “As a result of it is so massive, it took like 5 folks to hold it and put it on Jen.”

One other problem for Duncan was constructing an onstage wardrobe for Kat. These items did not simply must look good, additionally they needed to sustain with Lopez’s high-powered choreography and transfer together with her. “These appears are all breathable dance materials,” says Duncan. “They’re all efficiency appears.”

Among the film’s most dynamic scenes are the place Lopez performs her new, unique songs on stage as Kat Valdez — together with a high-octane, dangerously horny efficiency of “Church.”

“The thought for the ‘Church’ costume was that it was a quantity [Kat Valdez has] been doing without end,” says Duncan. “That was her first single, so this can be a routine and a tune that she’s anticipated to play at each live performance.” The costume hints at Valdez’s storied profession with out losing any strains of dialogue. “The look most likely modifications each few years for that quantity, however it’s a glance that feels prefer it has advanced a bit. Though you by no means see the unique model of it, you may think about what the model from 15 years in the past can be.”

With praying nuns wearing latex bodysuits (which had been “plenty of enjoyable,” based on Duncan), the entire quantity is a seductive frenzy. “It is provocative, and much more provocative than something she’d put on on the street. The thought is she’s at her most provocative, her most pop star, when she’s performing.”

If that beautiful, gemstone-encrusted bodysuit J Lo wears reminds you of one other iconic style second, you are completely appropriate. When requested if Duncan and her workforce had been impressed by the bedazzled Christian Lacroix jacket that Michaela Bercu wore on the November 1988 cover of Vogue (Anna Wintour’s first concern as editor in chief), Duncan confirms it was “undoubtedly a reference level.”

One other highly effective reference level for Kat Valdez’s on-stage appears: “Actually iconic Thierry Mugler from the ’80s.” For a duet together with her ex, Bastian (performed with loads of ready-to-ruin-your-life vitality by Maluma), Kat Valdez seems in a gold and silver robe layered with fringe and goddess-like equipment. “There have been plenty of Thierry Mugler [references] in her headpieces and her jewellery,” Duncan says.

Offstage, Kat drops her flashy movie star armor. There is a trend-free normalcy to her outfits — regardless that they’re nonetheless completely tailor-made and lushly rendered in silks and cashmeres. “Normally, we needed Jennifer’s nonperformative, non-stagewear aesthetic to be actually timeless,” Duncan says. “Previous Hollywood, iconic, stylish — in order that if this film is on in 10 years, you are watching it and probably not caught up within the second of the style. We did not need something to really feel too on pattern or too particular to after we had been filming. We needed it to face that check of time so it could all the time really feel elegant, stylish, and aspirational.”

Lopez performs Kat Valdez with a wonderful mixture of confidence and insecurity — a juxtaposition mirrored in her wardrobe. “She does have plenty of moments of vulnerability, and I believe we put her in silhouettes for these moments that had been capable of bridge each issues. She was capable of look fierce and digicam prepared — prepared for her videographer to take protection of her, able to be snapped by the paparazzi — but in addition weak,” says Duncan. “An instance can be when she goes to the highschool and meets Lou [Charlie’s daughter, played by Chloe Coleman] for the primary time, and he or she’s in that all-white outfit that has that little cropped, structured blazer. It feels actually assured; she has enjoyable sun shades. It undoubtedly seems like a glance that she put collectively understanding it could be photographed, however she’s additionally assembly Charlie’s daughter and he or she needs to look extra regular. And that is her model of dressing down and being regular. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless so highly effective and stylish.”

One other outfit Duncan liked creating: “After they return to her condo and he or she’s simply within the shell turtleneck, she feels so relatable. It has a vulnerability to it in that scene together with her and Lou.” That vulnerability is mirrored in Kat and Lou’s relationship as they slowly opening as much as each other. Kat sheds her blazer and (literal) layers of clip-in extensions to have a heart-to-heart together with her boyfriend’s daughter. The visible matches the emotion — her costume transforms together with her. “That is an instance of when the costume has an arc and serves each intents,” says Duncan.

Lopez has a private tie with Kat’s romantic look whereas chaperoning the high-school dance. “That gown was born out of a dialog I had with Jennifer about what she wore to her semiformal or promenade. She made [the dress] for herself!” says Duncan.

The gown strikes the right steadiness of being particular sufficient for an iconic pop star however approachable sufficient that it does not alienate the wide-eyed youngsters on the dance. “That gown was good,” says Duncan, who notes that it has a particular “sweetness.” “It had the form of a pop star making an attempt to be extra grounded, however it’s nonetheless obtained a extremely, actually flirtatious cutout and continues to be one thing {that a} instructor on the faculty would not put on to the semiformal. However for Kat, it is far more relatable and feels a lot much less presentational, much less purple carpet than her different items. Nevertheless it nonetheless seems like a pop star’s gown.”

One other arc telegraphed by Duncan’s costumes: Kat falling in love. “We had a colour chart, Jennifer and I, the place we began her [wardrobe] out with plenty of whites and metallics, after which her palette softened,” explains Duncan. As her romance with Owen Wilson‘s Charlie Gilbert deepens and warms, so does her type. “We crept in blues and pinks and saturated her,” says Duncan. That wordless storytelling is a trademark of Duncan’s work as a fancy dress designer.

“Marry Me,” that includes Caroline Duncan’s fabulous costumes and J.Lo’s emotional efficiency, is in theaters nationwide and streaming on Peacock beginning Feb. 11.