How Prince William’s posh noughties look inspired the costumes in Saltburn
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It’s 2006, you’re 19 years old, and your new best friend has just invited you to spend the summer at his family’s stately home. Which is great, except the world of the upper classes is alien to you and you have no idea what to wear or how to behave.
This is the set-up of Emerald Fennell’s new film, Saltburn, the much-anticipated follow-up to her Oscar-winning debut, Promising Young Woman. Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is the fish out of water; the aristocratic friend, Felix, played by Jacob Elordi.
With a plot that addresses class in this way, nailing the wardrobe for each character was critical, and the result is a playful yet well-observed guide to the style nuances of the “old money” crowd.
This wasn’t costume designer Sophie Canale’s first time at the upper class rodeo, she also worked on the second season of Bridgerton. She had the perfect template to work from for Felix too: Princes William and Harry were aged 24 and 21 respectively in 2006. The set that they ran with and the parties they attended were well-documented in the press at the time. Classic shirting, polos, quality knitwear, nicely worn-in denim – the uniform of the former public schoolboy hasn’t changed much in the past 18 years.
But it’s not just the clothes that make the character so convincing, it’s the way they’re worn: “There’s an effortlessness in [Felix] wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt and a pair of jeans and not putting any shoes on while walking around the house,” she explains. “It’s those details that relax him so much.”
The grown-up version of this attitude is represented in Felix’s father, Sir James Catton (Richard E Grant). He wears bespoke tailoring throughout. “Within that society, a gentleman will always go to Jermyn Street to buy his clothes,” Canale says, because only the truly privileged are “able to purchase such expensive clothing and make it look effortless in the way they wear it.” Again, we can see this mirrored in how the King and his late father Prince Philip acquired and wore their clothes – garments precious enough to repair rather than replace.
Fashion lovers will enjoy the wardrobe of Felix’s mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), a former model who wears vintage Ossie Clark by day, Jenny Packham and Valentino gowns from the early 2000s by night, even for a family dinner. Pike wears these showstoppers with an easy nonchalance. “I wanted to have this kind of bohemian look to her as well as high fashion,” Canale says.
Felix’s university friends have more of a foot in the real world – though not quite as real as Oliver, though. But there’s an unspoken dress code that they all instinctively understand. “Within their own gang, everyone is so comfortable in their looks,” Canale says. “Making them all look pretty similar to one another [was important], because that’s what people tend to do. If you’re in the City, [for instance] it’s gilets and blue suits and blue shirts. It’s about tribalism. The clothing of everyday wear is about people wanting to fit in.”
There is an element of period dressing here: anyone who spent any time around teenagers and 20-somethings circa 2006 will be familiar with hipster jeans, velour tracksuits and Jack Wills sweatshirts. “There’s a tackiness to the 2000s that I really wanted to get across,” Canale says. “As much as there was money in their Jack Wills, their Ralph Lauren, their Tommy Hilfiger, it’s [also] the high street fashion of the time” – so tracking down pieces from brands like Jane Norman, Kookai and Kate Moss’s collection for Topshop, quite literally sourced “from the back of people’s wardrobes” became part of the costume designers’ skill set too.
When Oliver arrives at Oxford in a shirt and tie, with a scarf that could have been borrowed from a student at Hogwarts, he’s obviously wide of the mark. “[He expected] everyone would be wearing their Sunday best, and instead, everyone’s in their Juicy Couture, Uggs and casuals,” Canale says. “[We used] a colour palette of quite dull greens and greys. [Someone who] would get lost in the crowd … There was just no fashion or style to the way he looked, it was still that his mum was dressing him.”
That’s because there’s an art in standing out, and there are characters in Saltburn who strive to achieve that. “You’ve got characters like Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) and Venetia (Alison Oliver), their clothes are much more thought about in the sense of trying to push the barriers and not wanting to fit into the crowd.”
Canale says Farleigh is her least period correct character. He wears the kind of luxury brands that carve their own distinct path, among them Gucci, Wales Bonner and Bode. “He’s not a polo shirt-wearing guy.” Venetia’s wardrobe is one of a girl who can wear whatever the hell she wants and has the funds to follow through. “[I was] trying to get as many archive pieces of the period – your Christopher Kanes, your Jenny Packhams, your Agent Provocateurs that Amy Winehouse was wearing in the period, and then putting it on Venetia.”
The ultimate attention-seeker though is Pamela (Carey Mulligan). Elspeth’s friend is tolerated as a house guest only because she is beautiful and chic. Canale looked to Daphne Guinness for inspiration: “[Pamela is] in this beautiful Chanel piece. But she’s wearing, over the top, something like 11 necklaces and then the bangles … She wants to be the centre of attention, because that’s her power.”
Does Oliver succeed in making himself a fully paid-up member of the upper class tribe? That would be telling (No spoilers!), but so much is conveyed in the clothes worn by each character. As Canale says, “Clothing is so important to how we visually present ourselves or see one another.”
That all the actors wanted to take home their costumes is just the icing on the cake.
