In 'Mother Mary,’ Fashion Answers Every Burning Question You Might Have About the Movie

This story contains extensive spoilers for Mother Mary.

At the surface level, Mother Mary is a movie about a pop diva needing a dress. On the eve of her comeback performance, a Gaga-meets-Madonna music phenom (Anne Hathaway) asks her estranged best friend and collaborator, now a renowned designer with her own fashion house (Michaela Coel), for a custom look. Except David Lowery’s new A24-distributed melodrama—which cuts between Hathaway performing synth-y stadium bops, written and produced by Charli xcx, Jack Antonoff, and FKA twigs, to intense one-on-ones in a barn that Sam (Cole) repurposed as her atelier—is far more complex and heady than that.

"This is not a ghost story," the film’s poster reads, and yet it hinges around the concept of being haunted—performance becoming possession, wounds from a friendship breakup never fully healing. There are more obviously supernatural moments, too: an Ouija board, a séance with scissors, and Mother Mary’s final exorcism, where an otherworldly spirit, depicted as a sheet of diaphanous red fabric, trickles out of Hathaway's body.

Sam does end up making the titular pop star a new dress out of that fabric-ghost. But as costume designer Bina Daigeler explains over Zoom, the fashion-centered plot supports a more relationship-driven narrative, where an artist burnt out from selling her soul to the stage turns to the only person who can help her. "It's really a psychological story told through the costume design," says Daigeler. "The film's journey is a very intense and beautiful one, of Mother Mary wanting to find herself again, and the fashion needed to capture David’s vision."

Beyond the immediate splendor of Daigeler’s work, the costuming is incredibly effective at grounding the abstract, at times inscrutable, fantasy. (Lowery acknowledges this head-on: "These metaphors are exhausting," Hathaway says to Cole twenty minutes in.) Thigh-high boots and bejeweled bodysuits translate the image of a Taylor Swift-esque pop star. (Lowery told Empire that Swift's Reputation concert movie served as inspiration for the film.) Halo headpieces and Joan of Arc-inspired armor position Mother Mary as an angelic martyr. In effect, the movie’s costuming becomes the key to making sense of its surrealism.

Ahead of Mother Mary’s limited United States theatrical release on April 17 and nationwide expansion on April 24, Marie Claire spoke with Daigeler to unpack all the meaning in the film's fashion. Here, we take a deep dive into Mother Mary’s stage costumes, Sam’s fictional atelier, and the symbolism behind that final dress.

Marie Claire: Let’s start with Mother Mary’s concert outfits. How did you go about designing them?

I had a lot of influences: Taylor Swift, obviously, Dua Lipa, and Beyoncé. But I mostly wanted what she wears on stage to reflect the lyrics and what that moment in her life, in the movie, was. When she performs "Dark Cradle", she’s in all black. In the scene of "Holy Spirit," she has a completely different expression, with light fabrics, sparkles, and embroidery.

Haloes are also a signature of Mother Mary’s stage persona. How did you approach designing the headpieces to fit with her career progression?

I drew a lot of inspiration from period paintings and medieval artwork, which are very angelic and spiritual. The haloes started very simply. You actually do see Mary’s first headpiece, a spiky, punk-styled one, in a brief scene in Sam’s studio, when [she] finds an old photo of the two of them. That's when her halo era started—when she started as an artist, really—and it all came from Sam.

As Mary's career progressed, the haloes developed and became much more designed. We added a lot of glam, bling, Swarovski crystals, and stars to emphasize that they became her costume. Those were a challenge because Annie [Hathaway] dances a lot, so we needed to make sure she could really move in them.

Then, there’s the last halo in her final performance, and that scene is really all about the headpiece. Mary really wants to get rid of this image of her as an angel-like figure, so she can find herself again. She's able to rip her outfit off, but removing the headpiece is nearly impossible. It’s uncomfortable, and it snags on her hair. But then she does.

How did you create a fully fleshed-out yet fictional fashion house for Sam?

That was a big challenge. I was really nervous about it because I thought, 'Oh my God, I have to do all these pop star costumes, and on top of that, I have to create a brand for a fashion designer!' I researched a lot about Black designers—there aren’t many in luxury fashion, which is disappointing, and made research difficult—as well as African fashion. I read magazines and books about the journeys of Black designers, like The New Black Vanguard. The British fashion designer, Dilara Findikoglu, was another reference I returned to.

I also worked closely with Michaela Cole, and we agreed that [Sam] would make pieces with lots of color and that were quite dramatic. We actually made enough pieces for a full collection and shot a scene of her fashion show, which was ultimately cut, but the process helped me understand what Sam’s fashion house would look like.

Mary’s final dress, which is a real Iris van Herpen dress, is entirely based on pleats, so we knew to incorporate pleats as a theme for Sam. David, Michaela, and I are also obsessed with the plissé process, so we wanted to show Sam pleating the red fabric before it became the end dress.

Speaking of: Tell me about connecting with Iris van Herpen, and why you chose that specific dress.

BD: David had [IvH] in his mind when he was writing the story, because he is just fascinated by her career, everything she’s achieved, and what she does. When I came on board, I was absolutely thrilled because I’ve always wanted to do something with her and to see her process. David and I went to Amsterdam to meet with Iris, and she had prepared several different ideas for us. We chose that final dress, a beautiful, deep red one that drapes in waves around the body, because we knew it was perfect for our project.

Mother Mary doesn't want to have another stage costume that's all about the costume. She wants something intimate that's about her and shows her inner side and emotions. We didn't choose the most stunning dress; we chose one that was symmetrical and focused, that underlined all of Mother Mary's beauty, accompanied her career, and the development of her character, because that's the important part. That dress gives her clarity, humanity, and lets her be who she is. You look at the person, not at this big costume.

Originally, Mary tells Sam she wants her dress to be any "color but red." What’s the significance of the final dress being red?

I actually didn’t approach [red] as a theme in the fashion; it was more of an emotional element. Red is blood and flesh, and it's a very spiritual, powerful color. It was more about that, because, again, our idea was that the dress needed to show the emotions behind the spirit, the obsession. It's her inner self on the outside.

What was your favorite aspect of working on Mother Mary’s costuming?

The collaboration. To achieve everything we wanted, the costumes required very intense teamwork. I worked closely with David, and we had a very intense, creative work relationship and beautiful process. We both had strong intuitions about where we wanted the fashion to go and what we wanted to do together. Annie [Hathaway] and I spoke all the time; she was always so excited to come to the fittings and see what her new stage costumes would be. She also had to dance and move a lot in them, so we needed to collaborate with the choreographer and the stage and production design team. Everything felt very personal. Sometimes I actually felt like I was Sam: I really was creating something special just for Annie.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.