by At the end of her costume field deck for “Manhunt,” costume designer Katie Irish offered a bold proposal.
“What happened to me is that when we look at these period pieces, they all look sepia-toned. That is not the truth as it seemed,” says Gaeilge. “Given the advances in technology, everyone was crazy about color. They loved it,” she says. “And so I put a note on it that was like, I know this is how this period was usually presented, but just to let you know, we can go as bold as we want with you.”
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The Apple TV+ series chronicles the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the 10-day search for his killer, John Wilkes Booth. The story centers on US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, played by Tobias Menzies, who leads the charge to find Booth. While some of the historical characters portrayed on screen have established visual precedent — most viewers can conjure up an image of Lincoln, for example — others are less clear.
“There were two separate camps of people,” Irish says. “There were people who were iconic. So, my main challenge was: I want this person to be a human being, not a symbol,” she says. “And then there were people I had never heard of, who were huge players in this story. And so it was a very interesting task to find out who they were.”
A self-described “nerd and geek” Irishwoman put her process into history but was willing to tweak details to support the overall visual story. “We’re not doing a re-enactment and we’re not doing a historical document about ‘this is exactly how it happened.’ It is historical fiction. And so we take a few licenses.”
Booth’s Irish dress, whose outfit on the night of Lincoln’s assassination was well recorded, was an all-black ensemble with a gray hat and riding boots. “[Booth] he spends 90 percent of the show on that one look,” says Gaeilge.
Staying true to that overall look, she played with texture within her darker color palette. She also contrasted Booth’s costumes with the lighter palette of his accomplice and frequent scene partner, David Herold, for visual variety. Booth (played by Anthony Boyle) is on the run for much of the series, a move marked by a degradation in his costumes.
“You get all the beautiful suits from the tailors and then my lead actor would be like, okay, so this one – we’ve got to have a tear in the pant from where the mud cuts off the shoe, and the pant leg cut up a little bit,” she says. “We knew we needed a lot of multipliers. Going through the pile, breaking his leg, sweat, dirt — we made 15 of that suit.”
With a male-dominated cast, Irish used visual cues for the audience to distinguish who is who in each scene, and uses color in her designs to mark alliances between characters. “Everyone is wearing a suit; Everyone has a vest, shirt, tie of some kind, jacket and pants. But it’s finding the individual choices in there that really bring a character to life,” she says. “How can you always find Stanton? He always has that gray top hat that looks like it. How can you always get [Thomas] Eckert? Eckert’s top hat is a bit tall; ‘Gangs of New York’ is a little inspired. [Sanford] Conover, who is a spy, changes hats all over.”
She worked closely with a team of grinders, and also leaned in accessories and details with coded meanings. Irishmen looked at acrostic jewelry for Stanton’s wife, Ellen Stanton, who paid tribute to the late character’s child; a flower associated with pompous behavior was chosen as an embroidery pattern for Andrew Johnson, and Edwin Stanton’s costumes often included wolf imagery.
“Lincoln calls [Stanton] Mars is a wolf, god of war, and the animal associated with Mars. And so he has a little pocket watch fob that has a wolf on it and we have buttons on one of the custom vests that have a wolf on it,” she says. “It doesn’t even have to be Easter eggs, just tell the actors, this is what this means. And it often helps them with their inner journey.”
Gaeilge remembers an early encounter with Menzies when she went through her research on him. “He looked at me and said, ‘I trust you. Let’s read into this,’” she says.
“There is no better feeling than watching an actor transform before your eyes based on something they have designed,” Irish continues. “When he watches, he starts to notice how they stand, if their walk changes a little, and to see in their eyes as they start to make calculations and changes in who their character is, based on something that I’ve done it.”
Launch Gallery: A Closer Look at the Costumes of ‘Manhunt’ on Apple TV+
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