Legend Costume Designer Caroline Harris: ‘I didn’t Want To Steal The Real Frances Kray’s Wedding Dress From Her’

There’s a new British gangster biopic in town and it stars our favourite character actor Tom Hardy, not once, but twice, as he takes on the roles of both Kray twins.

The film – Legend – also showcases a rising star that we’ve been watching with intrigue for some time over here on the Yahoo Style desk, not least because of her addictive Instagram account.

Emily Browning, a 26-year-old Melbourne born actress with amazing doe eyes and a deeply interesting look takes on the role of Frances, wife to the slightly less demonic Kray, Reggie.

In the lead up to today’s release, we sat down with Legend’s costume designer Caroline Harris, who’s job it was to turn take us, visually, on a journey through the glittering 60s, popping in and out of the cabaret bars and deep into the heart of the gangster underworld.

With some incredible notches on her professional bedpost – A Knight’s Tale, Repo Men, Fleming - Caroline was in a great position to cast her eye over the Legend script. Here she tells us everything from how the job landed on her doorstep, to what it was like trying to turn Tom Hardy into two different people:

So Caroline, You’ve already worked on some amazing dramas. But was it daunting to work on a film like Legend?

No, I wasn’t daunted I was excited. It’s was nice to be at home [London] whilst working. The film was 20th century so I knew I had the option to buy and scavenge around vintage shops, as you can still find late 50s and 60s items to use to be able to create the clothing for the film.

So how did the collaboration come about?

I’ve worked with the director before a long while ago on a film called A Knights Tale. I also worked with him in the U.S on a film called 42 - a baseball film set in 1942, which actually was more daunting as I knew nothing of the language of baseball.

Were you nervous creating the visual concept for such an infamous period of British history?

Yes, that was more daunting, as people often have very fixed ideas of what the 60s was, which they base on other films set in that period, as opposed those that were made within it. It’s a telling of a world that still had one foot in the 1950s, it was apparent that the boys had an appetite for glamour, film stars and to be around the vibrancy of that. I tried to do my best to show it wasn’t just the ‘swinging 60s’ - that was more high-end and later on in the period.

You mentioned you looked at various imagery of the Krays for inspiration, did you look elsewhere i.e celebrities or any other gangsters of the time?

To further make sense of the cut of suit, I found very similar ones on French film stars. Jean Paul Belmondo wore a very similar cut, so watching his films helped me understand it more, as a photo is only one view.

How much influence did Tom Hardy and Emily Browning have on their costumes?

Actors always have plenty of input. Just by their very presence, they just exude input even when they’re not articulating it. It just can’t be helped. You just have to work the actor out. I wouldn’t dress them in something they wouldn’t want to wear; it’s pointless to have visual ideas and then to try to just slap them on people. Getting inspiration from the actor comes naturally.

How did you differentiate between the two characters Tom Hardy played; was it subtle changes or big differences and did you enjoy the challenge?

Simply put, Reg wore a single-breasted jacket, which left his chest area open and gave the impression of a much cleaner cut and Ron wore a three piece double-breasted suit which covered him more, so immediately the chest and shoulders of both characters look very different. Tom can just transform his body though; he can just breath a new shape into it - he’s a very physical performer. The challenge was great fun.

The film had quite a tight budget and schedule, how long did you have to research and prepare all the costumes?

I think I had eight or nine weeks. The thing is the actors tend to appear three weeks before we’re due to start filming, so there’s a little island of a few great weeks of gathering and researching, researching to the extent that I could just go to a vintage market and scan the room and know exactly what I wanted. I bought a lot of stuff mainly for the fabrics, including bridesmaids’ dresses which I just chopped up for the details. Some of Emily’s dresses started out really wide but had beautiful details so we just took them back to the workshop and adjusted them.

Emily mentioned in our interview with her that her favourite costume was her wedding dress. She mentioned that it fitted like a glove, how many fittings did that take?

We actually made quite a few pieces for Emily to get the final fit. I had an excellent Italian tailor and amazing team of people. Emily is also an amazing person to fit as she has the patience to stand, whereas some actors just can’t stand still. If they can’t stand still its fine, we end up doing long distance fittings instead.

Was the wedding dress based on the real Frances’ dress, or did you get inspiration from elsewhere?

The real dress was beautiful, but I didn’t want to feel intrusive and steal that from the real Frances. That was a happy day for her and I didn’t want to recreate that because of everything else we recreated, so i went completely different. But it was purely, almost sort of superstition, it just felt invasive as it must of meant a lot to her.

So finally any favourite costumes from the film?

There was a black dress that Emily wears towards the end of the film, originally that dress was enormous. We reached the end of the day at a fitting, we had tried lots of dresses on Emily and we pulled it out as a wildcard, we put it on her and immediately realised the potential of it and took it straight to the work room for alterations. So I’m particularity fond of that

Watch our interview with Emily Browning below: