Costuming an icon: How the Beetlejuice wardrobe got a modern upgrade

(CNN) — Just over 35 years after the release of Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice,” Michael Keaton and his unforgettable striped suit has risen again, along with original castmates Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara and newcomer Jenna Ortega.

So influential were the outfits worn in the 1988 movie, imitations of Aggie Guerard Rodgers’ designs have become pillars of the Halloween costume industrial complex. Lydia Deetz’s red tulle wedding dress, donned on-screen by a then-16-year-old Ryder, has become the de facto cool girl get-up for October 31st celebrations. Just take Bella Hadid’s word for it — in 2018, the model wore a meticulous recreation of the scarlet gown alongside singer The Weeknd, who dressed as Keaton in his famous burgundy tux.

Costume designer Colleen Atwood, who worked on the 2024 movie remake released earlier this month, handled the expectations of Beetlejuice fans with extreme care — making sure to pay homage to the iconic looks in the original. But even with a film that boasts such an established fashion legacy, there was room for improvement, refinement and even experimentation. CNN spoke with Atwood in a Zoom call from Dublin. The conversation has been edited and condensed. (Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN.)

CNN: What were some of your influences when designing the costumes for “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”?

Atwood: For the (scenes set in the) underworld (a bureaucratic waiting room of sorts, for ghosts like Beetlejuice) I really was looking at the 1970s. We’ve got people painted all different colors. So sort of taking colors that look good with a blue face that aren’t too bright or that overwhelm them. And it ended up being sort of a ‘70s palette.

Within the underworld, there’s people that have been in there longer than others. So I have stuff from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, and I have stuff from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. All different periods combined down there, but the palette is controlled within a certain parameter.

There’s also “the Bob’s”, who are the shrinkers (or zombies) in the underworld. My inspiration for them was old Century 21 Real Estate guys that used to wear matching gold-colored blazers, a brown tie and a white shirt. I had very specific ideas for that part of the world.

How was it designing costumes for a film with so many historic fashion moments?

When you take an iconic person, you nod into the iconic. (The character of) Beetlejuice stayed in the same style of striped suit, but it wasn’t the same suit. He is an older, more worn Beetlejuice with a little bit more of a paunch, so I aged the suit in a way that was refined, and wasn’t just like dirt rubbed on it. The idea was that he’d had it on for 35 more years, that he’d been hanging out for a while in it. We used a more organic material than the original, which meant it had a little more softness to it because it had been aged to look that way.

Same thing with his wedding tuxedo. It had the feeling of a cheap rented tux, but with more fit. We had fun and it was a challenge, but we wanted to honor the work done before by Aggie Rodgers, yet in today’s world.

What is involved in that aging process?

The fabric is dipped in a color that makes the white a little dirty. Then after (the piece) is made, liquid dye paints are used to paint green, mildewy edges on the black and the white to soften it. The bottoms of pants can be painted and frayed, the edges of cuffs… You can discolor the area around the neck with rings to make it look grubby. It takes two or three days to do a jacket because like painting, you have to let it dry and then go in with another layer.

Warner Brothers. pulled out the original wedding tux from the archives for you and Michael Keaton. What was that like and did you get to see any more of Rodger’s costumes in the flesh?

The tux was a really crappy, off the rack tux. So it didn’t blow my mind. It was just like, ‘Okay, this is a tux. Moving on.’ No, I didn’t see the wedding dress at all, nor did I really need to. I didn’t care about what it was. I just wanted to make my own. So I really didn’t go back in a way you would if something was 200 years-old.

What was the starting point for your version of Lydia’s wedding dress?

The starting point for me was its Victorian silhouette. I took that and got some amazing lace from France and used different combinations of it to get it to be lighter and have a little more air to it than the original. Because it was made out of a much more refined material, it’s a slightly different take.

A lot of the costumes in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” are custom. Do you prefer creating from scratch?

I love creating costumes, but I also love vintage clothes and the fashion today. So it was fun on “Beetlejuice” because you can put all these different time periods together and create a special world that sometimes you see things in one period and suddenly it works in another period of time, aesthetically. To me that’s what made this movie special and fun as a designer.

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