Safowa Bright Bitzelberger On Costuming the Rise of The Cocaine Godmother for Netflix’s ‘Griselda’

When I finally sat down to catch up with Netflix’s wildly popular limited series Griselda, I was amped to chart the costume journey. Not only does this series follow the rise and fall of Griselda Blanco (ferociously embodied by Emmy nominee, Sofia Vergara), but the visual language reveals a story of people who slithered their way into their success by evading the public eye. Costume designer Safowa Bright Bitzelberger nails the ascension of this notorious woman so well that we could watch this series on mute and have a deft understanding of the characters’ wants, needs, and desires.

Right off the bat, Bitzelberger and I talked about our own connection with the time period. Griselda centers on a tight timeframe (between the late ’70s and early ’80s), but it’s a testament to how costuming lends itself to our own sense memory. I admitted that some of Griselda’s stiff necklaces reminded me of things my mom had in her jewelry boxes, and it’s a small detail that really transports us to the proper time.

“That’s like an Omega style necklace,” she says. “They are almost like a cuff, and the beauty of them is that they are constructed to undulate with your body. Griselda was not going to wear something delicate. When I hear Bossa nova music, that’s my happy place. I am transported to when I was five or six and my parents would have cocktail parties with their friends. For some reason, the sounds of music and chatter being muffled is something I really remember. I remember my mom coming into my room in a jumpsuit with her hair in a ponytail slicked to the side–very ’70s. That is something that reminds me so much of my childhood. When Griselda shifts to the ’80s, I remember my mom. I wasn’t old enough to wear those glamorous clothes, but my mother did. I remember watching Dynasty and Miami Vice all of those shows, and I wanted to do something grittier. This is a grittier, tougher world. Sofia had a lot of intense scenes–when Griselda is coming undone–and I didn’t want to do Joan Collins or someone jumping into a pool with a Bob Mackie gown. This was more streamlined and elegant in the fabrication. I had to dial back from what we know and love about that decade.”

When you search images of Griselda Blanco online, most of the images that populate are from when she was incarcerated or in years before her death. Even though, Griselda is a tight six episodes, the series focuses on her struggles to be taken seriously in a misogynistic world that constantly underestimates her. Bitzelberger loves research, but she soon realized that she had a lot of license to play since she wasn’t replicating specific looks from photographs.

“Period projects are, of course, a lot of work, but I am a sucker for doing research,” Bitzelberger says. “I love them. Even though there is a lot to dive into in terms of the wealth of the period, we have to remember that we are telling the stories of people who never liked having their picture taken. You’re telling the story about a notorious person from the ’70s and early ’80s, so you can focus on the styles and the trends of the time even though it was challenging to find pictures of these people beyond law enforcement photos. People are not at their best in those photos, if you think about it. It was challenging un building out from there. Griselda wasn’t in the public eye even though she has her hands in everything in Miami. I had to work closely with Sofia [Vergara] and our director, Andrés Baiz, in realizing that a lot of costuming comes from power and not style necessarily. I love the ’80s, so that helps.”

Vergara is front and center the entire series, and we can see how Bitzelberger and her team evolves her style as she becomes more successful. Look at the differences in the fabric or how they are draped on her body. When she first arrives in Miami, her clothes are made from a cheaper material, and they may have been in her closet for years. Vergara is someone who knows how to wear clothes, and that intelligence is expelled through how she carries herself in Griselda’s wardrobe.

“When it comes to Griselda’s evolution, she had money in Columbia because her husband worked for the cartels,” she says. “When she got to Miami, she had nothing. She grabbed her kids and a brick of cocaine to start her new life. Griselda might borrow clothes from Carmen at first, so she wouldn’t be wearing something that she is as familiar with. Even though we don’t jump forward that much in time, it needed to be present to the viewer. Her wealth would be represented by her cars, her house, her jewelry but not distracting. That was one of the challenges, because when you look at style, it’s not hugely different. It’s subtler since we only jump three or four years in time.”

In episode five, the series jumps ahead to when Griselda is the boss that we know she is. In her first few scenes, she wears white. It’s a clever nod to the product that Griselda moves on the street, but it’s also the symbol of power. It’s almost godlike. One of my favorite costuming moments comes at the end of that episode when Griselda throws a party for her husband, Darío Sepúlveda. She is wearing a gorgeous blue dress with a low neckline, and Darío wears a complementing shade. By that point, she is charge of everything, and her husband feels different in his clothing. The buttons may still be undone, but there is a weariness to him. At the same time, Carmen–a woman so desperate to stay away from this world at the beginning of the series–is also wearing a deep shade of blue. It signifies that she has been yanked back into the fold.

“She clawed her way up, and the biggest change in that time jump is showing how she is willing to get her hands dirty,” Bitzelberger says. “Griselda, by this point, is willing to kill somebody. White resonated so well, because is the symbol of an untouchable–she has people doing her bidding. Even though she absolutely had blood on her hands for the things she’s willing to do, she has a number of people who will take care of that for her. For that jump forward, we wanted to show that power position with such a pristine white. When she walks into the salon, her crew is behind her ready to do her bidding, and we wanted to visually show the different between the last time she went to that salon. Everyone is coming to Griselda, and everyone is at her beck and call. We had to be deliberate in what we put her in since we had to tell the story in a short amount of episodes.”

When I posed the question of what she would theoretically snatch for herself of her own designs, Bitzelberger’s mind started racing. I admitted that I wanted Griselda’s sunglasses since it was a piece that sticks with her throughout the entire series or I could swipe any of the button-up shirts worn by Alberto Guerra’s Darío.

“Those sunglasses are very that time period,” she says after a moment. “When we pulled together what to she was going to put in her suitcase after Marta dies, we thought she might subconsciously go back to a simpler time. Before everything gets so complex. She would grab the glasses that would still be impactful, and she would still go with that aesthetic. Griselda, and everyone else, is just leveling up. If I could take some things, though, the sunglasses would be one of them. Maybe because I am looking for an Emmy dress right now, I am look at deep tones, and it’s funny that I am leaning into something teal or dark blue like in that party episode. I do love that silhouette and that drape. All of those elements click for me. It’s sexy but it’s still elegant and elevated. I also love the wrap dresses from the ’70s, but that blue dress is coming with me.”

Griselda is streaming now on Netflix.