by Director Ti West’s terrifying horror trilogy comes to a sharp, elegant conclusion in the new film MaXXXine. Emphasis on glamorous—this one is set in the grim underbelly of 1980s Hollywood, where there’s no shortage of over-the-top dressers, acid-washed denim, and slicked-back hair.
We first fell in love with Maxine (Mia Goth) in 2022 X, tribute to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre set in the 1970s, and then delves into the relentless history that preceded it in the same year Pearl, located in 1918 Texas. Now, we have to continue his final quest for super-realism – and the clothes themselves play a big role in this film, arguably more than they did in the previous two.
bazaar caught up with costume designer Marie-An Ceo to learn more about bringing Maxine to life, portraying another side of 1980s fashion, and how you manage a clothing department with all that fake blood flying in everywhere.
This is the third film in the trilogy, but the first of the trilogy for which you designed costumes. How does MaXXXine belongs to X and Pearl?
Each film has its own look, and I believe that is one of the reasons why these films have been so successful. Artistically, they each have their own feel. Ours has this very stylized genre from the 1980s that is particularly associated with roadhouse and slasher films. This whole feel is from the 1980s, where the movies were suspended, and we played with that a lot. The production design, the lighting, the costumes – everything really took it.
Are there any easter egg references to the previous two films?
This one is personal, but we had this “Oui” T-shirt. I had this T-shirt when I was a kid, and I wore it everywhere. And it seems one day, my father, [who] He was very conservative, I saw him on my 10-speed bike with that T-shirt on, and he almost had a heart attack –Oui It was a noble magazine from Paris in the ’70s and ’80s. And “Oui Oui Marie” is a song in Xso in a way, the “Oui” T-shirt we used in this movie is a fun nod Xand it was also my naughty T-shirt that I shouldn’t have been wearing.
Also, Maxine’s jeans outfit. Ti was very specific that he wanted something that he listened back to his overalls [in X]. So we did that with these two pieces that look like overalls. This 80’s version of overalls. This is our nod to that – but in acid-washed denim.
Acid-washed denim! The 1980s is such a rich time period visually.
I was alive in the 1980s, but I will say, many styles were happening at the same time: Punk was over, disco was still kind of happening, we were entering the New Romantic style, men were wearing glam makeup in the clubs, there were so many different club worlds going on… [style], we really wanted to draw from the club scenes. We didn’t want it to be just “80s on big shoulders,” but we’ve got a little bit of that in there too. Maxine is tough, but she is bigger. She’s part Blondie, part Flash dance. She’s coming out of the 70s, even though we’re in the mid 80s.
Did you find a lot of vintage for this film, or did you create your own costumes, or both?
With Maxine’s character, we needed a lot of multiples with all the stunt doubles, but we did very little of all her stuff. We made her jeans acid-wash, we made most of her dresses; for the scene at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, we were inspired by the glamor and glamor of the 1930s Scarface. Ninety percent of what Maxine spent, we actually did.
I think vintage can be difficult for a movie like this – all the stunts and all that fake blood.
In fact, something we did that will make most costume designers cringe is we had some really bad multiples. We’ve had some great ’80s originals, like Michelle Monaghan in this amazing ’80s leather jacket and Sergio Valente jeans, so we’ve had some serious spreads when it came to stunts. Because sometimes it’s really hard to replicate a vintage when it’s that good. As far as the background and the crowd scenes, those are almost original pieces from the 80s.
You’re no stranger to the slasher genre, having worked on franchises like Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. How did this project compare to other slashers you’ve worked on?
It’s very funny, because I don’t actively seek it out. I started doing these movies with Michael Bay and got into it that way. I grew up in a small town in Florida where there was one movie theater, and I remember going to see the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I would cover my face through 90 percent of it – but there’s something about being in the movie theater with all the people screaming that was really exciting to me. I don’t love watching people get killed, but I love what those movies can do for the audience. I really love the movies of that era. In this case, I’d say Ti did a good job with it Pearl and X that I thought, This man has something special. So when this job came up, I said, “I’ll do it kill it.”
Is it hard to plan costumes when there is so much blood?
With MaXXXine I was so obsessed with the period pieces that we found, and when we were filming, we were facing an imminent strike, so this was getting ready much faster than which we would normally have. I lived dangerously! You usually have a dozen of one thing going on there. With MaXXXine, we would have the original and then some really squinty multiples. Her leather pants from the 80s were so beautiful, we couldn’t replace them – we tried to take other people who had to go through stunts, but nothing fit as well as the original pants. We wore other pants multiple times, but it was one of those cases where we fell in love with the originals. One thing that’s different about this movie is that we made it so old school. We kept using some of the same bloody stuff [take after take] and just over time it came out right. It was like an old school movie from the ’80s – “Just clean up the blood, it’s fine!”
Did the actors try to steal anything from the set?
This time, interestingly enough, people were very polite and asked for their things! It happens a lot. One thing is this T-shirt we put on Moses Sumney. People used to write on T-shirts often in the 80’s, and this T-shirt with poetry written on it and worn inside out was one of his choices. I’m not sure what happened to Moses’ poetry T-shirt!
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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