The Time-Traveling Show "Kindred" Is Filled With Both Time-Period And Modern Costumes — Here's How It All Came Together
The time-traveling FX miniseries Kindred premiered on Hulu last week. The series is based on Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 science fiction and contemporary romance novel of the same name.
In case you haven't binged the series yet, it's about a young Black woman and aspiring writer named Dana who moved to LA to create a life of her own. However, throughout the show, she time travels to a 19th century plantation, a place closely linked to her and her family.
The eight-episode season brings viewers back and forth between the 19th and 21st centuries — which in turn means there is a ton of time-period and modern costumes throughout the season, thanks to the show's costume designer Jaclyn Banner and her team.
We spoke to Jaclyn about all things Kindred and what went on behind the scenes with creating the show's costumes — including how she made over 100 muslin dresses for women in the show, the challenges of staying true to the time period, and more.
1.Jaclyn and her team made over 100 muslin dresses for the enslaved women in the show — but they had to make sure they looked authentic while being comfortable and lightweight for filming in a hot climate.
"Finding the right fabric because, during this time period, a lot of the plantation owners would give the enslaved leftover fabrics — a certain amount — and a certain kind of fabric for them to make their own clothes out of and it was a very coarse fabric back then," Jaclyn told BuzzFeed.
"It wasn't anything that was really nice and comfortable. We also had to take into consideration that [the actors] were shooting in Atlanta, Georgia in the summer. So it has to give that [authentic] appearance, but it also had to be comfortable enough that they can wear it day in and day out, with all of these different levels of aging and distressing."
"So all of that was taken into consideration when we were building these dresses. We did one [version] for the winter and then we did one for the summer — different silhouettes. The summer dress was slightly more of a teal blue, whereas the winter dress was more of an indigo, like a true blue," she continued.
2.In fact, Jaclyn and her team spent a lot of time finding the right shade of blue for the muslin dresses that not only complemented each actor's skin tone but also worked well with the set design.
"Finding the right blue sounds easy, but in actuality, it's not. I was working with the production designer on his designs, and his color palettes for the location for the sets. All of those things [called set dressing] is because if [the actors] are in a blue dress, we can't have them sitting on a blue couch, because you're not going to be able to see [the details of their costumes]. Then, finding the right blue that would work on our variety of complexions [was another challenge]," Jaclyn said.
3.A lot of the time period costumes that were white didn't translate well on camera.
"So a lot of times, the costume designer collaborates with the production designer, the prop department, set deck, and hair and makeup. But one of the departments that aren't always thought of is our DP, who is the director of photography. Everyone in film knows that DPs hate white. So when you see white on camera, it's been tagged or dyed, so that way [it] is not as bright because the light just absorbs it and DPs hate that," Jaclyn said.
"So I did test different white linens in different cool and warm tones. I had to say, ‘Hey, they wore white shirts. I can't get around that, that was true to the time period, they didn't have color shirts so they have to be white.’ But we can't use true white, it has to be an off-white that we can use on camera. Every episode was normally shot by a different director. And sometimes the director brings in a different DP. So I would have to do tests for all the DPs," Jaclyn said.
"So that was one of the things that was a huge challenge for this project. Because one DP wants one kind of tone, another DP wants another kind of tone. And for some reason, they just kept reading white, but we can see the shirt in person and it's kind of like a beige, dingy white. Yet, on camera, it was appearing [stark] white, so that was definitely something that was very problematic for us."
4.Jaclyn had to do specific camera tests for some of the fabrics that were true to the 19th century time period so they showed up well on camera too.
"If there was a particular fabric — like silk or satin — that was very reflective, I would have to do a camera test to make sure ‘Okay, this is how the lighting is going to be, can this work on camera before I go and build three of these dresses?'" Jaclyn said.
"Because sometimes there were a lot of multiples [of the same costumes] that were for our background actors or for people that were doing specific things in certain scenes. If there was a scene where someone was throwing a drink in someone's face, we'd have to have lots of multiples, or there's a scene where someone’s dress is being ripped off of her. We had to have multiple of the same costumes for the different takes."
5.Ryan Kwanten — who plays Tom Weylin in the show — thought of a specific element that should be part of his character's costume.
"In our first fitting, we wanted to find some kind of jewelry element that he could wear because, for [the character] Margaret, her jewelry element was her cross. But we wanted to find something for him and he asked, ‘Well, what about a ring?’" Jaclyn said.
"I was like, 'Oh, that's a great idea. It can be like an heirloom.' In the show, he was married to someone else prior to getting married to Margaret. And that's who he really loved. So we thought, ‘Well, maybe it's a ring that maybe she gifted to him,’ or ‘Maybe it's a family heirloom because he kind of married into her money. And then Margaret married into his money.' So I got with the prop department and was like, 'Let's team up, let's get this ring made.' So we had them draw the family crest that we put onto the ring that he wore. So that was something that was definitely a collaborative effort," she said.
6.The theme of Dana's costumes throughout the show was survival.
"Dana's costumes were more about survival as opposed to really showing who she is in the modern world. In the time-period world, she ends up going into an enslaved dress. So the thing about her going back and forth between the modern and the period time is that we didn't really want her to stick out too much," Jaclyn said.
"It's referenced in the book and in the series that Dana was dressed like a man, but that doesn't mean that she's in men's clothing. I didn't put her in men's clothing, but she was wearing pants. Women didn't wear pants during that time — only men did. And she was in a button-front shirt. So the modern costumes had to be something that didn't make her stick out too much. We did about five fittings for Dana before we actually got it right," she said.
7.Margaret purposely wore light colors to portray her softer side.
"We wanted to make Margaret relatable to the audience — you'll have some kind of compassion for her because she leveled up, she's married to this mean man, which maybe made her be this mean person, but she's also a mother, she is crazy about Rufus [her son]," Jaclyn said.
"To make her more relatable, we wanted to soften her up because it would have been easy to keep her in dark colors because of how she is, but because she does have that soft side, she does have that maternal side, she's ruthless as a mother. We wanted to translate that through what she wears."
8.Jaclyn and her team felt pressure to stay true to the time period, since it's one that hasn't really been portrayed on TV that often.
"There was definitely a lot of pressure because this book is a literary masterpiece. This is one of Octavia Butler's best-selling novels. So, we all had this honor and this duty to bring this book to life and make it as real and as true as possible. I think with that in mind, it just made us all work that much harder and made us just work better together," Jaclyn said.
