‘Cyrano’ Costumer Massimo Cantini Parrini On Capturing the Yearning of Love Through Clothes

The Best Costume Design category is full of worthy contenders this year, but Cyrano‘s designs make you swoon the most. For a tale about the power of words and the weight of love, nominee Massimo Cantini Parrini (a contender last year for Pinocchio) manages to capture the feeling of your heart fluttering with pinks and light blues but then he grounds those passionate thoughts with crimsons and reds. In this legendary story, the men are yearning the hardest, and Parrini’s work echoes all the pangs of love and heartbreak.

Most of the men in Cyrano spend their time in soldier’s garb. Peter Dinklage’s title character is dressed in his stately uniform for the majority of the film, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. adopts this dress as well when Christian de Neuvillette joins the fight. What is striking about the soldiers’ uniforms is the deep crimson that pops on the vest and the sleeves.

“We chose this color with Joe [Wright] because we were going to shoot on the Etna volcano with snow all around. It was going to be perfect with this off-white environment all around, and also because Noto, the town where were shooting, has these ivory and buttercream walls all around it. We chose crimson because it is the color of passion and therefore it was difficult to execute this specific hue. I dyed numerous samples of neutral-colored linen fabric, and it took a while to give us the color we wanted. I joked with Joe that with color correction, you can, in the end, obtain the color you wish. We decided to go the other way, of course. Most filmmaking is done with color correction, and we didn’t want the color of this special red hue to be changed using that method.”

Before Christian joins Cyrano in the army, we see him briefly in his own clothes. His rumpled or wrinkled attire might suggest a wayward nature or a lack of clarity with what to do with his life. Since Christian is young and fresh-faced, Parrini took an opportunity to show how these soldiers could modify their uniforms to fit their own mood or personality.

“When Christian arrives in the city, he is coming from the province tattered and rumpled. He is a boy who sees Roxanne and immediately falls in love. He doesn’t have a job, so he enters the army. Since they are wearing the same uniform, I made a little it a little different than the conventional uniforms of the time. I decided to change the uniforms with the use of buttons along the seams. By snapping the different parts on and off, the sleeves could be snapped off and unbuttoned and you could achieve a vest. The tails of the jacket could be buttoned, and it would become a jacket and no longer look like a uniform with tails. Or it could be a cape. That was the touch I added since it is very difficult to convey romanticism through a uniform.”

Ben Mendelsohn’s De Guiche is probably the most fashionable man in the film even though he uses his power to control and manipulate. It’s amazing to see the actor in more colorful and playful costumes, especially in the pale pink waistcoat (someone stop me from stealing that). De Guiche is a dandy with darker motives and feathery details

“The character of De Guiche really embodies the flamboyant sir of the 18th century–the frivolity of that time. He reminds me a little bit of the French Sun King in those years, and he is the only sir at that time. De Guiche actually believes that he is going to marry Roxanne, so he is a little gullible. He has this naivete in his character that really has human trait in his personality. I had a lot of fun designing his costumes. He is dressed in a hue of pink from the beginning to the end of the film, and he is wearing the same outfit as the soldiers are but in this lighter shade. In the opening theater scene, and he is wearing a cape that I was inspired by a cape from the 1960s by Balenciaga that I own in my collection. It’s incredible to see how modernity and period can mix in a splendid way, and you don’t notice it’s a modern garment. Another feature I’d like to highlight about De Guiche’s costume is that he is wearing a corset or a bustier on top of his costume.”

A costume that probably doesn’t get enough credit in Cyrano is featured in the opening theater scene. Before Dinklage fights for the sake of his own name, a band of actors portray sheep on stage. While one may assume that they aren’t given much thought, Parrini put in a lot of effort to every single piece we see on screen. Every man, woman, and sheep was given their due, and Parrini gives us the chicest sheep we have ever seen.

“In the scene at the theater, we have Montfleury, who is a typical actor and singer of that time, and he is still very Baroque. His costume appears like Roman armor. The scene in the play was set in the woods, and that’s how I thought there would be different types of leaves that I would put on fitted suits for the actors. One evening, Joe called me, and told me he had the idea of Montfleury being a shepherd. I liked the idea a lot. Immediately, I envisioned these clouds of sheep. When kids draw sheep, they have four sticks for the feet and these round, puffy bodies of soft wool. He sent me a drawing, and it was exactly what I had in mind. It was incredible how we both stuck to the same idea. I bought kilometers and kilometers of tulle fabric which was not white. It was different hues of white and ivory. To honor Joe, who is British, I made the feet of the sheep black, as the typical feet of British sheep are the same color. It was incredible to clad the bodies of the bodies of these incredible dancers with puffy sheep costumes. Revenge for those who don’t attend a sports club.”

A group of nuns are seen towards the end of the film, and I was struck by the lightness of the habits and how they seemed to float. It gives the characters a warm, ethereal quality that also calls back to the complications of love.

“I liked a clean and essential line. The mood of the film is a bit for all the costumes, and I wanted the costumes of the nuns–with their color and the colors of the environments–to be like an announced paradise.  In the film when the nuns are outside, being cloistered nuns, I closed them inside a structure that allowed them to see but not be seen. Joe loved them and put them in the background several times.”

An avid costume collector, Parrini wouldn’t dream of taking anything from the Cyrano set even though I admitted that I wanted De Guice’s fabulous hats.

“I wouldn’t steal anything from my archive!  I absolutely do not dream of letting anyone wear antique clothes They are very delicate and they are all rare, unobtainable pieces. I buy many antique things for films but none of them are collectible.”

Cyrano is in theaters now.