How David Zinn recreated the 1970s music scene with his Almost Famous musical costumes

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It's all happening!

Almost Famous, the beloved 2000 film from Cameron Crowe inspired by his own youthful experiences as a music journalist, is coming to Broadway as a musical.

With a book and lyrics by Crowe and a score by Tom Kitt (Next to Normal), the musical sets the story of young aspiring journalist William (Casey Likes), groupie Penny Lane (Solea Pfeiffer), and rock 'n' roll band Stillwater to a new original soundtrack.

Set in 1973, Almost Famous is almost equally about the vibe and the fashion as it is about the music (perhaps because the music sets the tone for the story). For costume designer David Zinn, that meant an opportunity to play in a world grounded in reality that still came with a certain amount of flair.

"I approached this production like a movie," he tells EW. "We built wardrobes for the characters and committed to trying to find as many vintage things as we could that were practical to use. It's been tons of vintage shopping. It's a really cool era to dig into. It's post-hippie, pre-disco. There's still that handicraft embellishment vibe from the hippie era, but it's taking a turn toward the body conscious, yumminess of the later 70s."

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

Neal Preston

Of course, the original movie itself was there as a springboard for Zinn. "The original film is gorgeous and iconic," he adds. "Partly just because it's Cameron's life, and he took so much care in creating the world when he told it as a film. There's a ton to learn about character and milieu and vibe from all of the choices that they made. Partly, I like it because it's so simple. They really feel like clothes in the movie. Even though it's such a starry world, it captures the low-key California, early 70s vibe. You feel like the person is wearing the clothes, not the other way around. That's the vibe we took with us."

And Crowe was also on hand as a reference any time Zinn had questions about the era, Crowe's own personal experiences behind the storytelling, and so forth. But there were also the real musical icons of the time (and their fans), which proved perhaps the most potent source of inspiration. "The Allman Brothers, Glenn Frey, Stevie Nicks, Joni [Mitchell],  Kris Kristofferson and Linda Ronstad, any of those folks," Zinn says. "Trying to find as many photographs, and not just in performance, but of them backstage and on the bus and in the studio — to understand the logic of how they started to put clothes together. What are all the facets and ways that all these folks wore clothes and thought about clothes as a statement?"

Ahead of Almost Famous' official opening on Nov. 3, Zinn shared some costume sketches and the stories behind the designs with EW. So let's take a look and find out what it takes to dress like a golden god.

William

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

David Zinn

Because William never really leaves the stage as the driving force of the narrative, Zinn had to find a single outfit to define him and his coming-of-age journey. He went with a familiar look from the film, a striped t-shirt, jeans, and jacket. "He's a kid in a world of adults," explains Zinn. "In some ways, it's an iconic  child outfit. This is a world where everybody wears jeans and they all wear variations of sexy, fitted flare bell-bottoms. William's jeans have to express something different. He's young; he's growing into himself."

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

Neal Preston

Zinn says they tried several variations of t-shirt, but this one felt right. "We had to find something that felt iconically kiddish," he adds. "He's embarking on this magical journey, and he has to maintain a youth and suggest a slightly more naive time. He almost feels like Leave It to Beaver, just  an iconic young person. It felt like a great place to keep him rooted."

Jeff and Russell

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

David Zinn

For both the lead singer and talented guitarist of Stillwater, Zinn wanted to lean heavily into the early 70s rock scene vibe, while still also carefully distinguishing their personalities. Of course, bell bottoms were a must.

"I was surprised to find going back to photos that there's a real range of flares that people wear," Zinn says, noting the difference between Jeff's wider flare and Russell's straighter leg. "Some people really did wear just straight Levi's. Some people wore super flares and some people wore medium flares. It's a nice way to help express character, a difference between people who are essentially just wearing jeans and t-shirts. The amount of flare that they have tells a lot of story about their showiness or vanity."

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

Neal Preston

While Jeff (Drew Gehling) is showy and vain, Russell (Chris Wood) is a steadier, more even-keeled presence and Zinn wanted their clothes to reflect that. "Russell's super low key," Zinn explains. "He's like [The Eagles] Glenn Frey in that he's super proud of the fact that he's from the Midwest and reps that vibe and dresses in an understated way."

"Jeff is more of a peacock," he adds. "That shirt that I drew in the sketch is actually something we found on Etsy pretty early on in the process, which was someone had taken a Henley and hand embroidered over it. It has a little bit of the frilliness and showiness, and he has a million patches on his jeans. It has more of a showman, peacock-y costume vibe."

Yes, that's right, even Broadway costume designers use Etsy for hard-to-find looks.

Penny Lane

If there's anyone in Almost Famous who is a fashion icon, it is groupie and music lover Penny Lane. As originated by Kate Hudson in the film, her flashy coat and sunglasses (which are featured on the movie poster) became iconic. As such, Zinn knew it was the one look he had to get absolutely right.

"The coat is a thing that people are super invested in as a thing they remember from the movie," he says. "It's a sign of Penny's guardedness and the romance of her character, but it's also her armor that she's ultimately able to shed."

Solea Pfeiffer, who stars as Penny, brings her own stamp to the role. "She is so physically different than Kate Hudson," Zinn explains. "What's beautiful about what Kate Hudson wore was its simplicity — it had an innocence and fragility covered up by this wonderful, lush, magical coat. We've just taken that same idea and adapted it for Solea."

"The coat feels almost like a magic carpet," he continues. "It's an entrance to another world, which is both fairly romantic and lush but also something she really hides behind."

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

David Zinn

There was also the factor of needing the coat to convey the same ideas, but from a far greater distance than the lens of a camera.  "In the film you can get really close in that coat," Zinn notes. "That coat has a richness and a depth and beauty that you can investigate really closely with a camera. We needed people that are sitting 40 feet away from the coat to also feel like they had access to its richness and mystery."

Zinn set out to give audiences a coat with the same level of intricacy and embroidery, just on a more visible level. "[Both us and the film] started in a similar place, which was a 20s or 30s velvet opera coat, and I went about investigating the layers and textures and history and age of that coat in a way that felt a little more accessible for people that were some distance away from it," he details. "It's history and warmth and worn-ness was more forward in our world. Also, we have to make her stand out in a big stage full of people. Diving into a color felt a richer and more of the theater, which felt appropriate."

There is, of course, the question of what Penny wears under that signature coat, a look Zinn worked with Pfeiffer on, being particularly mindful of the fact that unlike Hudson, she is a woman of color.

"We tried to find pieces underneath that felt like they expressed the time and were sexy and fun," he says. "She wears a bunch of variations on what I've drawn, which is just an interesting, sexy top and some really cool jeans and boots. And then, are there choices that she's making about what those tops are that just feel a little bit more appropriate to a woman of color. We explored different textures and ideas about simple, cool pieces that a woman of color would have worn at the time too. Penny is growing so much, and you really track her through trying to put on a costume to figure out who she is in these different situations."

The Band Aids

The rest of Penny's friends and fellow band-aids (as Penny puts it, "Groupies sleep with rockstars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band Aids.") also needed to reflect the variation and effortless cool of the music scene at that time.

"They're Penny's band," says Zinn. "They're the band together, and she's the lead singer. They all have to be different from each other and also feel like a unit. I dove into color and texture and pattern with them. There's a real painterly quality to how they hold together, so that they can be different. They can feel like different creatures, but there's always a guiding principle that's keeping them as a threesome. So that Penny pops out against them."

Zinn set parameters and a palette for each of three Band Aids: Polexia (Jana Djenne Jackson), Sapphire (Katie Ladner), and Estrella (Julia Cassandra). For Sapphire, he turned to a photograph from the era that captured his imagination. "There's a really gorgeous picture of a 'groupie' from the time who had that look," he says. "I don't know her name. I also looked at Beth Ditto and other cool rock'n'roll girls who have a hardness to them and anedge to them that the other two girls don't have."

Almost Famous Musical
Almost Famous Musical

David Zinn

For Polexia, Zinn wanted to find a look that would reflect women of color who participated in this space at the time. "I looked at Betty Davis, Miles Davis's ex," he says. "I asked, 'Who's a rock 'n' roll girl from the early 1970s, and how did they find their way into that world?"

When it came to Estrella, Zinn stayed closest to the movie and her gentler, softer approach. "The biggest holdover from the movie was Estrella, who has this slightly vintage vibe, a bit more traditionally 'feminine,'" he says. "I held on to that world for her."

Ultimately, it was about walking the line between allowing the women to differentiate themselves within their unit and selling their effortlessly cool personalities. "I kept trying to find ways to reinvent, so that are three distinct personalities," he says. "I did a little bit of, 'Who's cool in a way that these three incredible women are cool, and how can we mine some of that vibe to help them form their look?'"

Almost Famous opens Nov. 3 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

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