“We dress for dinner here,” Felix Catton, played by Jacob Elordi, explains in the trailer for Salt burn. With a shrug and a sense of carefree boredom, he then mutters, “It’s like black tie.” Does your family not wear formal clothes to eat?
Within the confines of the film’s mansion, fashion is just one of the many ways the Cattons maintain the appearance of the status quo—and their privileged place within it. Written and directed by Emerald Fennell (also writer-director of 2020 Promising young woman), the film follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a working-class outsider, as an invitation to spend the summer in Saltburn draws him into the family’s madness. Critics call this movie a psychological thriller, but… Salt burn is much more than that. It’s hot, comical, perverse, mysterious and has more twists than a 17th century maze. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but let’s just call it that Call me by your name meets Downton Abbey meets Cruel intentions meets … American psychopath?
Fashion plays a huge role in the film – not only to remind us of the Cattons’ old financial background, but also to emphasize Quick’s status as an outsider. Within the first five minutes we hear a classmate say that Quick shouldn’t be invited to a party with the fancy students because he “looks like he shops at Oxfam.” Upon arriving in Saltburn, Quick is drawn into a decadent, deranged and very well-dressed world, where dinners are black tie, the butlers wear fancy liveries and vintage Miu Miu shoes are worn to play drunken post-prandial tennis. At the climax of the film (again, no spoilers), a ‘costume party’ father is seen dusting off the old family armor for a Midsummer Night’s Dream– themed bachanal in the gardens of the estate. What fun!
The whole film is a fantastic, unforgettable romp back in time to the 2000s, with bootcut jeans, oversized rugby shirts and lots of Nasty Gal. The last time we spoke to this film’s costume designer, Sophie Canale, it was for work Bridgerton. And while this tasteful period confection and this dark, steamy millennial thriller may not live in the same aesthetic universe, both draw interesting parallels around ideas of Britishness, class, and exploring a character’s inner life through costume. Here’s what Canale had to say about how deep the fashion rabbit hole goes Salt burn– and whether we can expect those wide statement belts to make a return anytime soon.
Sophie, wow. This film. It was so fun to watch – and it struck me how big a role clothes play. How did you develop these characters through their clothing?
I think clothing is really the key to who and how people are. We are all part of tribes, even if we don’t intend to be. Especially for the college student age group, as we see in this film, you are so easily judged by what you wear, and that was so important here.
The first line of the movie is when someone says to Oliver in a mocking way, “Nice jacket.” Clothing is this way of reminding the characters which social stratum they belong to.
With Oliver he had an idea of what the university would look like. He buys the blazer, he buys the tie, the scarf. He had the look of how he expected everyone to be, and then was quite shocked by how everyone at school was actually dressed. Within the Saltburn household everyone is on their own journey, but especially at university it’s about understanding who fits in and who doesn’t.
The choice of the 2000s as a time period feels interesting. Did you buy a lot of vintage, or did you end up building a lot of these costumes?
The 1990s are very popular in Britain at the moment, but the 2000s are a rather strange fashion period that hasn’t quite returned to the same extent. It’s an interesting time to dress up because they’re not quite in the costume houses yet, but they’re also no longer in the stores. So we went online and looked for very British brands from that period: Jane Norman, Jack Wills, Kookaï. We went to websites like Depop and eBay and all kinds of vintage stores and basically bought off people’s closets.
I love the idea of selling stuff from my 2000s closet on eBay and having it end up on Jacob Elordi. Have you worked with brands to find archival pieces from that period?
In my research I looked at pop culture at who was popular during that period, and Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen and Kate Moss for Topshop were big references, so we looked for brands that worked with them at the time. We have worked with a number of brands. Jenny Packham was very generous. Both [Carey Mulligan’s and Alison Oliver’s characters] Pamela and Venetia wore Christopher Kane from the 2007 runway. Venetia wore two Agent Provocateur pieces: a leopard print bodysuit with a cowboy hat, and this other bodysuit with stars on it. For [the family matriarch played by Rosamund Pike] Elspeth, we had a mint green silk dress with a big red bolero and a beautiful gold dress – that was Valentino. And Chanel was very generous with the look for Carey’s character Pamela. We went back into their archives and found pieces that would work, and they said, “Why have two bracelets when you can have twelve?”
When you and I last spoke, it passed Bridgerton, which required almost every costume to be built. But it sounds like you were more of a scavenger before this, trying to put together the right mix of everything.
It’s a different skill set than buying fabrics and designs. Styling is a skill in itself because you’re really trying to make sure you capture the whole world and do it really well. It’s challenging in different ways, but it’s really fun. That’s the great thing about filmmaking: every task can be a different challenge.
What was the hardest part to get right?
Venetia wears a spider web dress; it was this piece of jewelry as a dress. It was a challenge to make a piece of jewelry as a dress because every time we moved the spider web it was a challenge to get it on her body correctly. But working on those challenges is the best.
My favorite character in this movie is Elspeth. She’s funny, intense, judicious, so amazingly campy, but also has this darkness in her. How did you bring her style to life?
Originally we looked at magazine articles from that period to see what people were wearing. Each character has a backstory and Elspeth was a model, so she has a relaxed, almost bohemian edge that gives her clothes a relaxed feel. I wanted to give the feeling that as a model she has collected clothes over the years, so we have her in the main vintage pieces that she collects, but also in the current jeans style from that period from the 2000s. Because her character is so judgmental , I also wanted there to be a relaxed element to her clothes so that she didn’t look tense. And compared to her old-money husband, James, I didn’t want her to be stuffy and trendy, but rather in this bohemian, older way, rather than dressing exactly from that period. She wore a vintage Alexander McQueen. There is a real relaxation in the way she drapes herself around the house and walks through the gardens.
One of my favorite moments takes place earlier in the film, when the group goes out for a round of champagne tennis after dinner in their tuxedos, and Venetia is wearing this amazing multi-colored metallic fringed jacket.
That’s from Nasty Gal and her jumpsuit is from Dundas, and she’s wearing vintage Miu Miu shoes. I loved that scene and photographing it was so much fun.
Is there anything your actors tried to steal from the set?
Oh, they had a long list, which I always consider a compliment. There are definitely pieces that you see in the film that are living in people’s closets right now. There were long lists that I emailed to the producer for permission.
The 90s have been trending in fashion for a while now, but I think of the 2000s. This movie makes them look so cool and fun. Plus, there’s a big Amy Winehouse biopic coming out next year, Back to black, which I’m sure will see renewed interest in that period, and it also finally feels like there’s enough distance for the 2000s to feel “vintage.” Do you think that decade will come back into fashion?
Who knows? The more expensive brands from that period certainly had some nice key pieces. But those wide belts? And the bootcut jeans? There’s a place in time for things, and I think it takes a while for them to come back.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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