Oliver Garcia (‘Chevalier’ costume designer): Composer Joseph Bologne ‘understood the power of dressing’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“When I first heard about the project, I was very intrigued about it because I didn’t know anything about this historical figure,” shares Oliver Garcia about Joseph Bologne, the Black eighteenth-century composer at the center of the film “Chevalier.” Once the costume designer learned about Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., he felt even more “excitement” about the film because it was “going to become the first time this incredibly inspiring character was going to be on a film.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Garcia has worked on period films as an assistant costume designer on “Anna Karenina,” “The Favourite,” and others. Unlike some of those films that center on either fictional characters or are only loosely based on historical figures, the aim of “Chevalier” was to “do a proper biopic” and “pay homage to the character and to the period that he lived in.” At the same time, director Stephen Williams “wanted to have a contemporary appeal so this character wouldn’t feel alienated any longer because he has been pretty much forgotten by history.”
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WATCH ‘Chevalier’ trailer: Kelvin Harrison Jr. stars as legendary composer
There are archival artistic renderings of some of the figures featured in “Chevalier,” including Joseph Bologne and Marie Antoinette. Garcia says he drew on the “existing paintings” to “be as historically accurate” as possible and “respected the silhouettes that they wear. We tried to recreate the construction techniques as close as we could understand them.” He introduced a “contemporary flavor” to those historically-accurate garments through his “use of color.” The costumer explains that he thought of himself as “a designer in the eighteenth century, but I have the arsenal of knowledge and techniques and sensibility that a contemporary fashion designer would have.”
For the majority of the film, Bologne predominantly wears shades of blue, from powder blue to deep navy with intricate textures. Garcia chose this color palate in part because “it is historically noted that Marie Antoinette was very fond of blue, so it was probably a color that was very common in the society.” He also felt that Bologne “understood the power of dressing and he was smart enough to understand that by what you wear you can say a lot and influence people.” This would have been integral to Bologne’s success because “he conformed to the norm in order to be accepted in that society that otherwise, they would have rejected him, they would be very prejudiced and [a] racist society.”
SEE Listen to a beautiful piece from the classical music period drama ‘Chevalier’
“Chevalier” focuses on a period of Bologne’s life in which he competes for the title of director of the Paris Opera against foreigner Christoph Gluck (Henry Lloyd-Hughes). The two compose and debut new operas to determine who will lead the cultural establishment, and Bologne selects young singer Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving) to star in his opera “Ernestine.” The sequence in the film in which Bologne stages the opera culminates with Marie-Josephine in a stunning pink and sage green gown that is richly adorned in flowers. Garcia drew inspiration for the show-stopping dress from a “very famous painting” of the real-life figure Madame de Pompadour. He says it took “a week to a week-and-a-half and a team of about six people to get that dress ready, and that was a luxury for the timings that we had in this production.”
When Bologne loses the competition to Gluck, Garcia changes the color palate in which he dresses him, swapping the blues for greens. The costume designer wanted to make a “distinction” between these period in his life and since “the shape of the clothes didn’t really change much” in this time period, “the only way for me to make a distinction was by changing the color and relaxing the silhouette a little bit.” He opted for green because Bologne “starts to become familiar with the African community that his mother (Ronke Adekoluejo) introduces him to,” as well as other “colors more associated with the African community.” If you look closely, though, you will see that his green coat “actually has a hint of blue on the underneath,” a subtle trace that the designer included because he “still wanted to show leftovers of his past life.”
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