How a Drama About a 1950s Ping-Pong Champion Became the Most Fashionable Film of the Year

Miyako Bellizzi has been the stealth mastermind behind some of Hollywood’s most recent memorable looks—from Robert Pattinson’s Marc Ecko sweatshirts in Good Time to Adam Sandler’s leather blazer in Uncut Gems. The New York-based costume designer has had a long, fruitful creative collaboration with filmmakers and brothers Benny and Josh Safdie over the years, but broke out on her own with HBO’s remake of the 1973 Ingmar Bergman miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. Following the marriage of Jonathan (Oscar Isaac) and Mira (Jessica Chastain), Bellizzi’s work put Isaac into another category of hot daddy fodder: philosophy professor with tiny glasses, sumptuous knits, and New Balance sneakers (in a hot way).

Since then, Bellizzi has become one of the industry’s most sought-after costume designers. This year alone, she crafted the glamorous, South of France summering ensembles in Bonjour Tristesse and the three-piece suits of The History of Sound. She’s closing out the year with another collaboration with Josh Safdie, on his solo directorial debut, Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet as the titular Marty—a tornado of a young man in the 1950s determined to make his dreams of playing ping-pong professionally happen, no matter the cost.

The scale of Marty Supreme spans New York’s Lower East Side to London to Japan to New Jersey, giving Bellizzi one of her largest scopes yet to explore the characters who inhabit Marty’s world. Here, Bellizzi talks to Marie Claire about collaborating with Josh solo, her love of texture, and working with fashion icon Gwyneth Paltrow.

Marie Claire: How was it working on Marty Supreme and prepping this film, considering its large scope?

Miyako Bellizzi: It's such a different world coming from Good Time to Marty Supreme. Uncut Gems was this kind of middle ground over the years, and the evolution of the films has gotten bigger. I remember reading the script for the first time, though, and being like, Wow. You're really thinking about this world of 1952, and how do you jump into something like that? You just have to dive headfirst.

You get into these little worlds and then all of a sudden you're spending all day reading about table tennis in Brazil in 1952. It takes time to do so much research, and it's my favorite part of the process because that's when you really start to think about the world and how vast it is. Josh and I love photography, and that's where it started. There's this Ken Jacobs documentary about the Lower East Side that Josh found at MoMA. He was able to share it with us and reach out to the filmmaker, and that was our bible for the Lower East Side.

It's like, “What's going on in 1952? What is happening in the world?” For me, that was important to know, especially how to differentiate between Japan versus the Lower East Side and how people are dressed. How am I going to show that? Everyone can do 1950s, but how do we show and make it real to each world?

MC: There’s so much use of knits and silks, but also texture in patterns in this film, like Marty will be wearing a printed tie with a striped shirt. How did you go about planning for each character in this context?

MB: I'm inspired by texture. Marty's world is layered in the texture of it, but also with the fabric [of what he’s wearing]. I love prints and stripes and the subtleties of that, in terms of fabric detail, but then also in the fabric itself. [Paltrow’s character] Kay's world was very different; the black and white tweeds versus Marty and his stripes and the suiting and the color palette versus even the plaids of [Odessa A’zion’s character] Rachel's dresses. There's such a culture clash of different types of people who lived in the Lower East Side, and I really wanted that layered world compared to Kay, or the table tennis was all solid.

I wanted Marty to be warm tones, like tans, but there's something really too collegiate about that, and as I got him into some cool tones, something changed. It's interesting how even color and fabric can determine someone's character.

MC: That’s like that pale blue short-sleeve polo sweater that Marty wears.

MB: I searched the world for polos. It’s really few and far between to find an actual polo from that era, and it's also knitwear, and knitwear is tough to recreate. For the film, I created some knits for Rachel's brown dress, and the vest he wears, I made. Knitwear is really tough, but it's also really important to the period. [Marty’s ping-pong rival] Endo’s polo at the end, that was this vintage polo. I was dying to use it somewhere because that one had a texture, it's almost like a crochet. It was the most beautiful polo, and I wanted to try to incorporate them wherever I could. The blue knit that Marty wears, when I found that, I was like, “We got to use this somewhere.”

MC: I know they are supposed to be goofy, but I loved the Harlem Globetrotter pink silk sets. They reminded me of something Tilda Swinton would wear.

MB: I had a lot of fun making those. The pink comes from Josh. The Harlem Globetrotters are red, white, and blue. The Washington Generals are green and white, and then this is the funny halftime show. Josh was like, “It has to be pink.” I thought they should be some sort of uniform. Then we talked about these wild sleeves on them. He was like, “It needs to be theatrical that they're playing ping pong and their sleeves are just really wide, so it's like they're dancing.” It became one of my favorite outfits of Marty's just because he has all these different semi-uniforms. Not that he's shape-shifting, but I feel like he's playing different roles.

Suiting is one thing that's very much him and who he wants to be, but there are other moments—working at the shoe store or his table tennis uniform—those are all uniforms that aren't necessarily reflecting his personal style. When you're designing for a character, you have to think about their closet: “What would they wear in everyday life?” I think that blue polo and the gab jacket in the bowling alley scene is the most reflective of his personal style. And I'm glad I was able to get that in there once, because outside of that, who is Marty? And I’m trying to show that in little details throughout the film.

MC: How was it working on Kay’s costuming? She’s such an interesting character who has that old school Hollywood glamour, but then left it behind to be a rich wife, so she’s sort of frozen in time.

MB: I had so much fun with Kay. She's my most fashionable character because she has access to certain brands and things that no other character has access to. We first introduce her character in London [in] 1952 during the winter. I kept her pretty black and white in the beginning because she has this lack of life. But she wasn't in boring clothes at all. I was intentional in how her world became more colorful by the end, by meeting Marty. Something about him sparked something inside of her and gave her this light. I don't think she realized she was missing something. What about Marty is so intriguing to her? That also helped me with Marty's character.

On one hand, Kay’s living the dream, or what people think the dream is. You’re a movie star, and you have a rich husband. It also is thinking about being a woman in that time period and feeling stuck in a relationship. You can't leave your husband. What are you going to do? That was part of my talks with Gwyneth, too. Not that it's similar to who she is at all, but she is this iconic movie star who's been in so many films. I think about how The Royal Tenenbaums was a big one. I wanted to give her fur in that first scene because all the women would be wearing furs. But I can't give her a mink fur because that’s what she wore in The Royal Tenenbaums.

MC: Kay’s stunning red dress towards the end of the film feels so pivotal when she’s running around with Marty in Central Park. And especially with how that evening ends up for Kay.

MB: At the last minute, we changed into the red dress. Red is so striking, and a woman of her stature wouldn't necessarily wear something so bright. In my mind, the comparison is like a middle-aged man going through a crisis, buying a red Ferrari. That's her red dress moment in the film, and she's like, “What am I doing? Snap back to reality.” It makes a lot of sense because, also within the color story, this is her pivotal moment, and then it all comes crashing down.

That night we shot in Central Park, the weather turned. It was 20 degrees. I made this shawl, but I made it super oversized; it’s almost like a blanket because I wanted it to be really dramatic for when she's running in the park. You don't actually really ever see the dress, which I also find interesting. It's like she's hiding.

MC: It’s her Little Red Riding Hood moment.

MB: Then there's this vulnerability when she comes back into the party, and she's taken that off. There's a shot right when she's walking in, it's really tight. It's almost like she looks naked. There's such a vulnerability there with that.

MC: Kay’s jewelry also plays a big role in the film. Did you also source all the costume jewelry?

MB: We had a few vendors that we had to get so much [jewelry from]. Even in curating that, it's a whole other part of someone's character. Marty has a necklace and his watch. There's a necklace that was scripted, so I worked with props, and that necklace was remade off of a Cartier high jewelry piece from that time period. I collected all these different ads, and they were so fun. Reading old fashion magazines from that time period, there's the “two rule” where it's like you're either wearing earrings and a necklace or you're wearing a bracelet and a necklace, but you can never wear all three. The pairings of everything were intentional—about being true to the era of costume jewelry and how it was worn. That was another world to discover.

MC: You’ve done costuming for Marty and Bonjour Tristesse and The History of Sound, all of which came out this year. Was there anything that stood out to you in your work?

MB: What's different about this year specifically is that both of the films I did were period films, and I had not done that before. So to be able to start with The History of Sound, which was 1917 to 1927, and then Marty, which was 1952, I'm going in chronological order. It was a very different approach this last year and very inspiring for me. I had not done a period film before, and that was really eye-opening. I loved it so much. Both of them were very fun projects to work on, [getting to research] the history behind it. It's been really fulfilling creatively.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.