ANN FOLEY IS THE FASHION BEHIND THE LAST OF US
One of the last things on your mind as you watch Joel and Ellie being forced to endure brutal circumstances and ruthless killers on a trek across post-apocalyptic America in HBO Max’s The Last of Us is the color palette. But it is bigger than Cordyceps to the show’s costume designer, Ann Foley.
Foley’s unique visual style made her a superhero mainstay as the costume designer for the first four seasons of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and character specific designs landed her on the “Top Costumes of the Year” list from Clothes on Film as well as a place in the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising prestigious 8th & 9TH Annual Outstanding Art of Television Costume Design exhibitions.
Her most recent credits include the costume design for Season two of the Emmy-nominated series, The Last of Us, with Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and Kaitlyn Dever.
In addition to making custom costumes for the cast, Foley collaborated with brands like Levi’s Carhartt, and Aviator Nation for the massive undertaking of crafting not only the leads’ new storylines but thousands of additional unique and lived-in costumes while remaining true to the original aesthetic of the videogame the show is based on. Taking place five years into the future, the costumes for season two have evolved as the infection finds different ways to infest the population. The progression of the Cordyceps in The Infected is reflected in the degree of detail incorporated into the attire.
“We had our challenges,” the designer tells LA Weekly on a phone call from Australia, where she’s in production on the latest Godzilla x Kong franchise.
“Season two is much larger in scale, so we were dealing with a lot more infected, and we see Jackson, Wyoming, and all of its citizens,” she says. “As far as working with all of the brands, I really try to stay true to brands that were around in 2003 and the late 1990s. There were a few exceptions, one of those being the Aviator Nation jacket that Dina (played by Isabela Merced) wears. When we started our research, I started taking to Aviator Nation, which was founded in 2006, so it was pretty close to our cutoff time. I had originally just put that jacket on my mood boards for Dina, because it was so colorful and effervescent like she is. When showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin saw it, they were so drawn to it. We had multiple conversations about it not being in our timeline, but sometimes it works for the story. Whatever works best and moves the story forward is what we go with on the show.”
Foley credits those stories, superb scripts, and constant interaction and collaborative conversations with the cast when it comes to costume and color palette.
The whole cast is into the world of this game and has such great input in their characters,” she says. “Pedro and Bella, and I had multiple conversations about the color palette. I wanted Ellie’s palette to reflect Joel’s. They might not be biologically related, but they were partners in this world together. Joel is the closest thing to family that Ellie has ever really experienced in this world. I wanted the palette to reflect that, so there are a lot of blues that reflect that sadness. You see that as the season progresses.”
In season two, Ellie jumps from being a 14-year-old girl to a 19-year-old woman, requiring subtle changes to her mostly custom built wardrobe, like bringing in her jeans a little but so they aren’t as baggy as they were when she was 14, taking up the hem on the sleeves of the t-shirts just a little bit, tapering the shirts a little for a slimmer look and putting her in hiking boots that lift her up a little bit.
“Little tricks like that help make the look and take that time jump of five years,” says Foley, who counts the famous studio designer Edith Head as inspiration. “Going from 14 to 19 is a big change for a girl, and everything that Ellie goes through this season is going to make her grow up fast.”
“One of the bigger challenges in television in general is you’re shooting one episode and prepping the next at the same time,” she says. “For example, in episode two, during the attack on Jackson, we did close to 600 fittings between principals, stunts, and background characters. Every single person on the show gets fitted, whether it’s an extra or a stunt person. And we’re shooting in two different provinces. The snow stuff up in Alberta and Jackson in Vancouver and we are starting to build for the Seraphites. You’ve got a lot of hats on, and a lot of plates are circling in the air. Thank God I have one of the best crews in my life to help make it all possible.”
The Last of Us season finale, airs Sunday, May 25, on HBO.
Original article at LA Weekly
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