In an early scene in Babygirl, Nicole Kidman’s tightly wound She-EO Romy Mathis anxiously prepares for a motel rendezvous with her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson). She wears a sheer blouse, a considered attempt to be sexually appealing to her much younger subordinate. Samuel doesn’t seem so concerned with his own appearance. He barrels through the door in a white ribbed tank top and hoodie, a thick gold chain hanging around his neck. But perhaps unexpectedly, the chain eclipses every other piece of clothing in the room—maybe even the film. “The chain is a Figaro link and I don’t know why, but Figaro for me always means New York,” says Bart, one-half of the film’s costume design duo, Kurt and Bart.
We don’t learn a lot about Samuel over the course of the film, but his fashion marks a clear divide between work and his personal life. “Samuel has two sides. The work costume is a monkey suit of sorts,” Kurt adds. “His board had a lot of real images of NYC interns: backpacks instead of briefcases, cheap winter coats, an un-tailored ‘my first suit’ and ubiquitous too-blue office button shirt.” Kurt and Bart’s mood board for Dickinson’s character also featured Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. “We did fit a few more tailored suits on Harris and they just didn’t feel right. We wanted him to feel almost like a boy in a man’s suit,” Kurt says. The pair put Dickinson in an Army Surplus jacket with the idea that it would be his warmest winter coat, function over fashion. “The Army Surplus parka in the fitting was when it really all started to fall into place and feel grounded,” Bart says. “All the other little details like the gold chain kind of came out organically after that.”
