In “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, writer-director Bill Condon was clear from the start that the wardrobe had to express the film’s central duality, its shifting balance between fantasy and confinement. To bring that idea to the screen, Condon turned to four-time Academy Award-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood, whose work has shaped some of modern cinema’s most iconic films, from “Chicago” to “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Fantastic Beasts.”
Atwood, who has known Condon since 2002, had never found the right project to reunite with him until now. Joining her was longtime collaborator Christine Cantella, whose deep understanding of texture and tone brought balance to the film’s two worlds: the dreamlike shimmer of Aurora’s stage numbers and the raw, muted realism of the men’s prison.
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” reimagines the Tony Award-winning musical as a cinematic event bursting with passion, fantasy, and political tension. The story follows Valentín (Golden Globe nominee Diego Luna), a political prisoner, who shares a cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser imprisoned under the government’s repressive moral codes. As they endure their confinement, Molina escapes into the story of a Technicolor dream in a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). What begins as a clash of worlds becomes a transformative bond that blurs the line between imagination and survival.
Working in close collaboration, Atwood and Cantella approached the film’s design as two wardrobes in conversation with each other. Atwood focused on Jennifer Lopez’s transformation into Aurora, while Cantella developed the lived-in, tactile reality of Molina and Valentín’s cell. Yet both designers crossed between those worlds, exchanging sketches, fabrics, and ideas until every costume reflected the story’s layered emotional landscape. Sequined gowns glimmer in sapphire blue and blood red; silks drift like smoke; metallic bodices catch and fracture light. Each piece of clothing, whether glamorous or stripped bare, carries the film’s pulse.
Reflecting on their collaboration with Lopez, Atwood shares, “When we were shooting it in one take, the problems were sort of solved before we shot, which is the best possible way to do something like that. Having someone like Jennifer who knows what that means is a huge part of that process because she literally knows what the costumes had to do. She’s a real collaborator in that sense.”
Colleen Atwood and Christine Cantella spoke with Awards Focus about the research into the looks of the Hollywood Starlet era, the origins of Molina’s gown, dressing and collaborating with Jennifer Lopez and what makes they’re 30-year partnership so special.
Awards Focus: I wanted to start by asking you both about the screenplay and starting to conceive the looks. What were those first conversations with Bill Condon about what he wanted to achieve in the film?
Colleen Atwood: When we started with Bill, he sent us a deck and let us run with it. He had done a lot of thinking about how old musicals looked from the forties and how they went together. He had numbers that he specifically liked. As we got into it, and looked into the prison side of it, Christine did a lot of beautiful research with photographs from the period in South America. That part of the film came together a little bit later because we had to really get a leg up on the sequences that were song and dance.
AF: Christine, the political and cultural period in the film is very specific. What kind of research were you doing, and how did you source the references that you were looking for?
Christine Cantella: Actual, physical books are a great reference for me rather than the internet, because you can access them in front of you most of the time. There were a few documentary-style photographers of the period, and I found it to be a little bit more modern, actually. Valerio Bisi is one of them who was an Italian guy who went into South America and to many different countries in South America and took pictures inside prisons. So, you were able to see these people who were taken off the streets in their own clothing and put into these places that were quite grim. You could tell that they weren’t given a uniform. Anything that came to them was from visitors who would come and see them and bring them things from home. So, they had these little bits and pieces that they could cherish with them while they were there.
AF: There’s such a stark contrast between the world of Technicolor and within the prison itself. And Valentine and Molina both have such distinct looks in prison. How did you start to conceive of what they would both be wearing, and the progression of the clothes through sweat and dirt across the film?
Cantella: We started off talking to Bill about how he wanted to see these guys, and then, paying a little bit of homage to the previous film. For Valentine, we went with the Chambre shirt and the really kind of basic working man style of clothing. He had his ideals, and he wasn’t concerned with frivolous things. To contrast, Molina was very concerned with those things, and he had all of his special mementos and stuff that he wanted with him and his comforts from home that he needed to have in that cell.
Atwood: It was interesting. The first fitting we had all these clothes from the period that were faded, but they had a drape, and they were sort of men’s clothes, but with the feminine cut, they were all soft fabrics. They were all fabrics that moved. They were really faded colors already that were beautiful and in the fittings, we just kept putting stuff on, and we just kind of ended up keeping it all. It’s like what Christine’s referring to, that we started with all the little magpie pieces in his personal bags, ironically.
AF: The items Molina has in those bags seem so special, like the bath gown he wears that flows so beautifully.
Atwood: That’s a twenties Kimono that was very popular postwar, so it was very reflective of something that maybe his mother had.
AF: I really love the contrast of Molina in prison because he wears a crop top, just very expressive clothing. And in the fantasy sequences, Kendall wears a tuxedo and his hair is slicked back. How did you start to conceive the looks of both Molina and Kendall as juxtapositions from the cell to technicolor fantasy?
Atwood: The reference for that was really the sidekick guys in the forties movies, which was a much more refined sort of slicked back hair, high-waisted pants, very buttoned down, and color coordinated hints to pastels that sort of hinted to the future. It was really a filmic reference for those costumes for him more than a conscious tie it into this or that. It just kind of naturally did it.
AF: Tonatiuh is a star on the rise and really brilliant in the film. What were those costume fittings like with him and being able to see him embody the character’s through the clothing?
Cantella: He had quite a few ideas, and he liked to try out everything while he was becoming those characters. He does have an amazing presence in the film, but you definitely could see him figuring that out with each piece that he would pull off of our rail. It was nice to have those fresh ideas from his perspective as that character.
AF: And then you have Jennifer Lopez on the other end of the spectrum, who is so experienced in films and productions, and she’s coming in with three different characters. What challenges did you face in designing for those dance numbers? Atwood: The costumes were built to dance in, but they were fit and built to work as being worked-in costumes, not just costumes to look good in. So, in the fittings with Jennifer, we discussed all those things, and had her move in the costumes, had them do the work that they were going to have to do in the numbers.
Cantella: For sure. And just like a stage show of hers, you wouldn’t want something breaking down midway. So, we felt the same way because we had such a tight schedule that we needed to make it work when it needed to work.
AF: How long was the schedule that you had?
Cantella: We did musical numbers in a day. I think there were two numbers, maybe that lasted two days, but it was mostly a day for each musical number.
AF: The costumes in the film that Jennifer wears are extraordinary, and her make-up and hair, particularly as Spiderwoman, are so striking on screen within the sets. With the short time frame, how did the looks and color palette come together?
Atwood: We knew what the general kind of colors were going to be, so I wanted to dial into that with her costume being the gold goddess in this room. It really started with a more sophisticated, glamorous nightclub, and then it went to more earthy as she met Kendall and started thinking a little bit outside the box. Aurora had her romantic look, but in the beginning, it was very movie star, and we wanted to really depict with the extras and these black tie on the men the old Hollywood glamor look. The hair and makeup department sort of fell into place behind us.
AF: I saw some concept artwork for the Spiderwoman costume and am curious how the dress came together with the ribbon pattern.
Atwood: I had a piece of fabric that was a woven fabric, that was woven in, that I’d had on my desk for a while. I was playing with it with my hands one day, and I went, “Oh my God, it looks like a spiderweb.” So the final spider dress is made out of that fabric over a silver metallic back. So, it would be kind of iridescent sometimes, like when you see bugs in the jungle or in a dark place, they almost look like they glow in the dark. I wanted it to have that quality.
When we did our last fitting with Jennifer, it was with full hair and makeup. So, we had the wigs, we had the general makeup sketched in, and the costume altogether. By the time we got to the shoot day, we knew what it was all gonna look like together in order to get it done in the way that we had to do the shoot.
AF: You’ve worked together for a number of years. Is there something you learned about your collaboration while working on this film?
Atwood: We’ve worked together for over 30 years, so we sort of do what we always do. Christine ended up going to Uruguay, overseeing all the prison costumes, which I consider to be pretty heavy lifting. I wasn’t available to do that part. They initially called me because of Jennifer, and I asked if Christine could come in and co-design it with me so we could get all the rest of it done in a way that could be up to the standards that both Christine and I wanted it to have.
Cantella: It’s a good combination.
Atwood: We like each other… most of the time [laughs]. I really appreciate everything Christine has done for me over the years.