Hollywood’s costume designers need more than just a good sense of style now. They need to be storytellers, tech whizzes, historians, and even physicists. That’s what Deborah L.
Scott has learned over her 45 years or so in the business, a period that has seen her dress some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future , Drew Barrymore in E.T.
The Extra-Terrestrial , and Kate Winslet in Titanic , a film that won Scott an Oscar for best costume design. Deborah L. Scott has designed costumes for E.
T. and Titanic, but it’s the Avatar films that have really stretched her boundaries. Credit: Simon Schluter Her most recent project, however, has stretched her skills more than any other film to date.
Since 2018, Scott has been developing the costumes, hair and props for Avatar: Fire and Ash , the third instalment of James Cameron’s world-building sci-fi franchise, slated for release in December next year. Scott also did the costume design for the first two Avatar films. “I have to consider not just how something will look, but how it’s going to behave, especially in these virtual worlds,” says Scott, who is based in Los Angeles but is visiting Australia for the Melbourne International Film Festival.
“Cameron is a stickler for reality, so for anything we made for each movie so far – anything that goes in a high-speed wind or underwater – we had to build a replica of it and do extensive tests.” For example, Kate Winslet, who play.