Spike Jonze's new film her, set in the near future, hits select theaters today, and here's what won't be making a cameo: Geordi La Forge VISORs, Dr. Evil collars, and RoboCop suits. Instead, the "future" looks a lot like today's modern metropolis living, but with smaller collars, higher waistlines, and way throatier (and actually useful) Siris. As diligent readers of the OC Blog (ahem), you already know from OC founder Humberto Leon's interview with Spike that Humberto played a significant collaborative role in shaping the film's futuristic aesthetic. So it only made sense for OC to show its love and support for the project by creating a collection inspired by costume designer Casey Storm's looks for the Golden Globe-nominated movie. I caught up with Casey, whose incredible career spans from working with the Beastie Boys to Michael Jackson. Find out what he had to say about meeting Spike on an impromptu trip to Reno in 1993, having flirty banter with MJ, conceiving the her wardrobe, and more.
The film is set at an unspecified time in the future, but you and Spike avoided making the film look hyper-futuristic. Why?
It came out of a few things; one was exactly that, to have something that didn't feel futuristic with anything too distracting. I think films get pushed in [the direction of clichés] because there's this idea that technology's natural progression is to become more sterile and cold. We were projecting forward what’s happening today, which is a push towards more organic, eco-friendly things––things that have more of a warmth to them. It's the idea that in the future, you’re going to have so many options. That world you’re going to create is probably not going to be a distant, weird, isolated, sterile world. You're going to create a really beautiful, unique, comfortable, warm, and personal place that you would want to be in.
How we arrived at our specific style was just a series of conversations. I talked with Humberto for a while. We brought in Geoff McFetridge [the graphic artist and director], and K.K. [Barrett, a production designer], and we all pow-wowed on what exactly our idea of the future means, and how to represent that. We went out and bought a bunch of clothes, trying stuff on Spike and shooting pictures. We tried to find unique shapes and things that were rooted in what’s today but that had something unique and interesting. That way, you could feel that you're in a world different from the one you live in, but it isn't a distraction and it never takes you out of the story or the emotion of the film.
What would you pick Humberto's brain about in your conversations?
I remember one conversation in particular where I had just broken down men’s and women’s, and I had a bunch of ideas for shapes and silhouettes and fabrics. We just talked through them and he told me some of his ideas for some future collections. We talked about lapels and textures, the width of things, and how to get to what we were trying to achieve without it becoming like Dr. Evil, or a narrative that appears in every movie set in the future. He had read the script and we talked about some loose ideas for characters; he was really great and helpful.
Can you walk me through the main characters and their looks, starting with Joaquin Phoenix's?
So Theodore [Twombly] is the main character. He’s sort of an average guy, and we wanted his style to reflect somebody that’s comfortable and not uptight, but also a little disassembled and just going through the world. I don’t know exactly how we arrived at the hig
The film is set at an unspecified time in the future, but you and Spike avoided making the film look hyper-futuristic. Why?
It came out of a few things; one was exactly that, to have something that didn't feel futuristic with anything too distracting. I think films get pushed in [the direction of clichés] because there's this idea that technology's natural progression is to become more sterile and cold. We were projecting forward what’s happening today, which is a push towards more organic, eco-friendly things––things that have more of a warmth to them. It's the idea that in the future, you’re going to have so many options. That world you’re going to create is probably not going to be a distant, weird, isolated, sterile world. You're going to create a really beautiful, unique, comfortable, warm, and personal place that you would want to be in.
How we arrived at our specific style was just a series of conversations. I talked with Humberto for a while. We brought in Geoff McFetridge [the graphic artist and director], and K.K. [Barrett, a production designer], and we all pow-wowed on what exactly our idea of the future means, and how to represent that. We went out and bought a bunch of clothes, trying stuff on Spike and shooting pictures. We tried to find unique shapes and things that were rooted in what’s today but that had something unique and interesting. That way, you could feel that you're in a world different from the one you live in, but it isn't a distraction and it never takes you out of the story or the emotion of the film.
What would you pick Humberto's brain about in your conversations?
I remember one conversation in particular where I had just broken down men’s and women’s, and I had a bunch of ideas for shapes and silhouettes and fabrics. We just talked through them and he told me some of his ideas for some future collections. We talked about lapels and textures, the width of things, and how to get to what we were trying to achieve without it becoming like Dr. Evil, or a narrative that appears in every movie set in the future. He had read the script and we talked about some loose ideas for characters; he was really great and helpful.
Can you walk me through the main characters and their looks, starting with Joaquin Phoenix's?
So Theodore [Twombly] is the main character. He’s sort of an average guy, and we wanted his style to reflect somebody that’s comfortable and not uptight, but also a little disassembled and just going through the world. I don’t know exactly how we arrived at the hig