In an early scene in Babygirl , Nicole Kidman’s tightly wound She-EO Romy Mathis anxiously prepares for a motel rendezvous with her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson). She wears a sheer blouse, a considered attempt to be sexually appealing to her much younger subordinate. Samuel doesn’t seem so concerned with his own appearance.
He barrels through the door in a white ribbed tank top and hoodie, a thick gold chain hanging around his neck. But perhaps unexpectedly, the chain eclipses every other piece of clothing in the room—maybe even the film. “The chain is a Figaro link and I don’t know why, but Figaro for me always means New York,” says Bart, one-half of the film’s costume design duo, Kurt and Bart .
We don’t learn a lot about Samuel over the course of the film, but his fashion marks a clear divide between work and his personal life. “Samuel has two sides. The work costume is a monkey suit of sorts,” Kurt adds.
“His board had a lot of real images of NYC interns: backpacks instead of briefcases, cheap winter coats, an un-tailored ‘my first suit’ and ubiquitous too-blue office button shirt.” Kurt and Bart’s mood board for Dickinson’s character also featured Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. “We did fit a few more tailored suits on Harris and they just didn’t feel right.
We wanted him to feel almost like a boy in a man’s suit,” Kurt says. The pair put Dickinson in an Army Surplus jacket with the idea that it would be his warmest winter coat, fu.
