Pottermore have released a new interview with costume designer Colleen Atwood, who talks about dressing Tina and Queenie Goldstein:
First, let’s find out what Colleen was thinking when she designed Tina’s sensible, storm-coloured outfit.
‘Well,’ she says. ‘Tina had been an Auror. She’s fallen out of that world but I still wanted her to have the feeling of that world. So I gave her an overcoat that’s a little bit loose like an Auror’s coat, but made of more ordinary fabric, as though she’d downgraded from that spectacular leather silhouette of the Aurors. Right from the start, I saw her in soft, cooler colours and warm greys, those sort of tonalities.’
That lovely almost-masculine elegance is deliberate, too. And makes perfect sense as you get to know Tina’s endearing pragmatism a little better.
Queenie’s utterly different. Her whole demeanor is lighter, softer and more feminine (but don’t be fooled into thinking she’s a lightweight in any other respect). Tina and Queenie are fragile and strong, beautiful and unaware of it, smart and romantic in their own ways. There are so many clues in the costumes – and even the way each woman brandishes her wand.
‘Queenie uses her magic in a different way; she’s got a different energy to Tina altogether and I wanted to dress her in a different way, keeping her light and her colours light: air-like and rosy and warm and approachable,’ says Colleen.
‘I have six of Tina’s costume and six of Queenie’s,’ says Colleen, who made duplicates of all the principle cast’s costumes to weather the adventures in the movie. ‘It would have been useless to find one real outfit for each of them from the era, they need so many of them.’
What is interesting to note here is we find out that Tina was demoted from being an Auror. What we know about her previously says “Tina is relegated to an office well below her abilities after she stood up for the wrong person” – is this what got her demoted?
Let us know your thoughts and theories on Twitter!
