Few appears are as distinctive as Amy Winehouse’s was. The singer’s sweeping eyeliner, tottering heels and raveled beehive are nonetheless immediately recognizable, 13 years after her dying.
Within the new biopic “Again to Black,” Marisa Abela performs the star from the start of her music profession till her remaining days. She wears mini skirts with girlish ruffles and small kitten heels to start with, earlier than adopting her distinctive pinup aesthetic as she dives deeper into the music business and her self-destructive habits.
The movie takes its title from Winehouse’s second album, and “once we get to ‘Again to Black’ Amy, it’s extra attractive,” the movie’s costume designer, PC Williams, stated. “There was an enormous change in the best way she offered.”
To recreate this, the manufacturing group studied many real-life photographs of Winehouse. However there have been additionally some intentional modifications: They had been making “a bit of cinema versus making a documentary,” Williams stated. Here’s a nearer have a look at the method.
Towering Hair
Though Winehouse discovered inspiration in lady teams like The Ronettes, her signature coiffure was not a conventional Nineteen Sixties beehive. “It was a grungy variation — home made, edgy, a little bit of cool,” stated the movie’s hair and make-up designer, Peta Dunstall: It tended to be “a bit ratty alongside the underside.”
To recreate the look, she mixed halo extensions — which circled the again of Abela’s head, beneath her pure hair — with fringe items and “quick bits” that she caught into the actress’s already “wild” actual hair, Dunstall stated. “Mainly, no matter hair I may lay my fingers on went onto Marisa. I may by no means discover sufficient hair,” she added.
Although the group matched lots of the movie’s appears to real-life footage of the singer, Dunstall stated that, at occasions, Winehouse’s hair was so large it might have been distracting for the viewer. “I toned that down, most likely by 10 %,” she stated.
Within the film, Winehouse’s dramatic winged eyeliner communicates her emotional state: “It relies upon how damaged she is: That’s when it begins to get messy,” Dunstall stated.
It was onerous to inform which make-up merchandise Winehouse really used, she stated, though “everybody on-line thinks it’s a Rimmel eyeliner,” referring to a preferred British drugstore model. Rimmel eyeliner incorporates loads of staining, which is “nice for a woman going for an evening out,” Dunstall stated, however impractical on a movie set the place there can be a number of appears in a single day. As an alternative, she used a gel eyeliner by MAC, which was simpler to take away.
Pores and skin and Tattoos
Dunstall stated she added texture to Abela’s pores and skin for scenes that came about “when issues weren’t so wholesome for Amy.” The group used a particular results make-up product referred to as Bondo to assist Abela’s make-up sit much less easily for scenes set through the extra excessive durations of the character’s alcoholism and drug use. Dunstall defined that Abela additionally wore an answer on her lips so that they appeared “dehydrated and a bit gritty — not so glamorous, principally.”
For Winehouse’s piercing, above the left aspect of her lip, Abela wore a ball bearing fastened with glue. “We simply hoped to God it didn’t fall off mid-scene,” Dunstall stated.
As a result of the manufacturing didn’t have design rights to Winehouse’s tattoos, the make-up artist Mark Coulier designed the subtly totally different ones worn by Abela within the movie.
Raiding Amy’s Wardrobe
In preparation for the movie, Mitch Winehouse, the singer’s father and the administrator of her property, agreed to let Williams go to his residence and look via what remained of Winehouse’s wardrobe. Dealing with the clothes “felt such as you had been holding onto just a little piece of historical past,” Williams stated.
With Mitch’s permission, she borrowed a number of gadgets to repeat their put on and tear — together with a pair of well-loved black skinny denims with corset detailing on the legs. However some items additionally match Abela, and Winehouse’s father agreed that she may put on them within the movie.
The pink ballet cardigan Abela wears for a scene during which Amy and Blake break up in a pool corridor belonged to the singer, Williams stated. The group additionally used Winehouse’s personal Star of David necklace, in addition to her pink satin varsity jacket, embroidered with the phrases “Amy Woo.”
Well-known Outfits
Williams wished to borrow the black ruffled Dolce & Gabbana mini gown Winehouse wore the night time she received 5 Grammys in 2008. The Italian designers didn’t have the gown, which been displayed in a number of museum exhibitions, of their archive, however they provided to remake the gown for Abela. “It’s the one merchandise we’ve that may be a direct duplicate,” Williams stated.
One in all Williams’s favourite outfits to recreate was the Luella Bartley gown Winehouse wore throughout an notorious 2008 Glastonbury efficiency, during which she appeared to drunkenly punch a fan. Made from royal blue silk and coated in plastic appliqué flowers, Williams stated the true gown was extremely heavy. Their duplicate used lighter appliqués, customized made in Southeast Asia, in order that Abela may put on it for a whole day of capturing and “not cross out from the load of the garment,” Williams stated.
