Dressing the Bridesmaids

Leesa Evans has met some of those challenges in many of the comedies for which she has designed costumes,from dressing and undressing the suburban characters of American Pie to assembling rock-star accessories for Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek.

Evans,along with Christine Wada,brought her skills to Bridesmaids, which received Oscar nominations for screenplay Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and supporting actress Melissa McCarthy. The Costume Designers Guild,has nominated Evans and Wada for their work. In an interview,Evans spoke about some of her ideas for the comedy about the travails of a woman whose best friend is getting married.

As a designer,I start with who the actress is,combined with who the character is,and find something that feels authentic to both of those people, Evans said. When she was working on costumes for Wiigs character,Annie,she played off Wiigs personality,which she saw as humble and sweet. Annie had all of that plus this sort of desperate and fish-out-of-water kind of thing. She wants to be cool,but without really being too aware of fashion. She doesnt have a lot of money,so she wants to try to stretch the best she can. Anything ranging from Urban Outfitters to Forever 21.

With Helen,Annies nemesis,played by Rose Byrne,Evans used the actresss love of high fashion to style her character.

Evans didnt want to rely too heavily on costumes to telegraph the films comedy,say,with a too-short bridesmaid dress. Sometimes comedy costumes in a comedy movie can be too much, she said. You have to play against that to let the acting and the comedy come out in the least unexpected way. If you tell the joke with the clothes before the joke happens,sometimes that doesnt work best.

That said,Evans did have fun dressing Megan,played by the scene-stealing McCarthy,whose outfits almost take on a life of their own. The most hilarious part of her character is that she always wears her pearls with this seemingly masculine kind of clothing, she said. Its that kind of contrast that seems to work.

When the women head to a boutique to pick out their wedding wear,the personalities of the characters emerge in their choices. Annie,concerned about cost,picks out the cheapest bridesmaids dress,while Helen chooses the most expensive. And Megan makes the most traditional,formal choice for a dress.

We thought it was really fun that the least likely character to get into a formal,princess-y dress would have been Melissas character. Evans wanted to match the dresses in that scene to the look of the set. Because of the way that Jeff Sage designed the bridal boutique,we knew that there was going to be a lot of white and also a lot of pink, she said. Pink is a caricature of what you would expect a bridesmaids dress to be,so we wanted to play with that a little bit. She chose varying shades of pink to make the dresses feel cohesive,but allowed the characters personalities to come out in various styles.

Evans did supply the punch line in one scene,in which the brides dress is revealed for the first time. The bride Lillian Maya Rudolph,as a gift from Helen,had her wedding gown made by a top designer in Paris. The result is a riff on the kind of fashion better made for viewing than wearing. It all started with it needing to be something that was couture and could have been on the runway, Evans said. And it also needed to be the version of that thats not actually wearable. She researched bridal-inspired runway shows and looked at fashion designers who offer signature gowns to end their shows. She also took cues from the shows of Alexander McQueen and Elie Saab. And then I kind of took that and tried to create a comedic twist on it,so that it was just laughable.