Whether a character is wearing a sleeveless cutoff or traditional northern regalia, the costumes in the coming-of-age drama ‘Fancy Dance’ on Apple TV+ hold the weight of familiarity and authenticity in native communities. Costume Designer Amy Higdon looked at rural fashion and functional clothing to style a fractured family searching for answers in Erica Tremblay’s feature film debut.
Written by Tremblay and Miciana Alisa, the film follows Jax (Lily Gladstone), a Native American hustler who kidnaps her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) from her white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow as she searches for her missing sister. Fancy Dance premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, securing distribution rights over a year later on Apple TV.
Higdon worked closely with Tremblay on a short pre-production to find the costumes for the characters, including Gladstone’s Jax, whose style is steeped in androgyny and athletic wear. Higdon, who also worked on Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ recalled seeing the spark of connection between Gladstone and Jax during a costume fitting that incorporated hair and makeup.
“Lily is one of those actors in a fitting that won’t look in the mirror the first time she puts something on… and she walked around the room trying to feel like Jax,” shares Higdon. “I love those moments in a fitting when you can tell the actor has found the character once they put on the right combination of clothes, and we found it.”
Higdon spoke with Awards Focus about the infusing swagger into Jax’s style, how Roki’s style is influenced by her mother and Jax, and how the film brought together native communities in Oklahoma and their rich, varied powwow regalia.
Awards Focus: What were your initial impressions of the story when you were joining the project?
Amy Higdon: [The script] felt like I was reading about people I knew, and that was so exciting. Reading the character of Jax, I felt like I knew what she would be wearing automatically because she seemed so familiar to me. The world Erica and Miciana put on the page felt so true and real to me as somebody who grew up in Native communities in Oklahoma. It was exciting, too, because I knew Lily was attached, so I was already imagining Lily as Jax.
AF: How did those first conversations with Erica develop the look of the family, and was it consistent with what you were imagining?
Higdon: It was pretty consistent. We had such a short prep time, and being on the same page made it easy. I came to her with a mood board of Jax wearing cutoff t-shirts, athletic pants, and maybe a pair of basketball shorts, and that matched what was in Erica’s head. She gave me the note that we wanted her to look cool and have a little swagger. From there it was a discovery in the fittings. Most of the characters in the story, which I think speaks to Erica and Mica’s writing abilities, felt so obvious on the page to me, so those conversations I had with Erica were efficient. I already had a strong image in my head just from the script.
AF: When we first meet Jax, she’s wearing a singlet with a gold chain. How did the style reflect how she moved through her day?
Higdon: The t-shirts with the sleeves cut off are like a mainstay on the rez. A lot of native, rural fashion is a more athletic style. It’s very functional because she’s out by a river gathering plant medicine and riding their bikes everywhere. Functionality is important. Jax is also a woman, and we wanted to make sure that her identity came across in her clothes because she’s very secure in herself and her identity. That androgynous look is more of masc styling that we gravitated towards. Also, the gold chain was Lily’s idea. If this is Jax’s only accessory, we thought she would’ve spent a little bit of money on a nicer chain that’s almost elegant, in a way.
AF: How did you work with hair and make-up to finalize Jax’s look, and do you remember how Lily responded to being in the guise of the character?
Higdon: Jax’s hairstyle was inspired to be masc and androgynous. The more masculine hairstyles in native communities are the low ponytail, braided hair, and the way her hair is braided at dinner with Frank and Nancy. The intention was to style it in a way most men would style their long hair.
Lily is one of those actors in a fitting that won’t look in the mirror the first time she puts something on. She walked around the room trying to feel like Jax and the physicality of her with the clothes. I love those moments in a fitting when you can tell the actor has found the character once they put on the right combination of clothes, and we found it. The moment Lily connected was with the shirt Jax wears to Frank and Nancy’s house. It’s navy blue with white polka dots short sleeve, and we buttoned it up all the way. That was where Lily was like, “Okay, I get Jax.” That was a great moment.
AF: How did you come to that polka dot shirt and seeing Jax in a formal outfit that would somehow reflect that she had everything in her life together?
Higdon: Men’s button-up shirts were something that we put in Jax’s closet. She’s in that striped shirt for most of the movie, and the way she would normally style them would be open over a tank top. But to appear really put together, she does her hair a little bit nicer. She’s also wearing earrings when she doesn’t normally wear earrings. She’s just really buttoned up, and everything’s pressed. It was about being as presentable as she could, and we never wanted it to feel like she was betraying a part of herself to do that. In that scene, Roki is wearing a white floral blouse. She doesn’t wear anything else like that in the movie, and it was the idea that Nancy bought that blouse for her that she got from the mall and picked out for Roki.
AF: Roki is also dressed like Jax when we first meet them at the river. How much of her style was also influenced by her mother compared with Jax?
Higdon: That was definitely a moment where she’s meant to mimic Jax in every way. She also mimics her body language in the store after the river scene. The shirt she’s wearing was intended for Jax, and Erica thought to try it on Roki and see what that felt like. That’s when we thought that she took it from Jax’s closet. In households where there’s a lot of women, there’s a lot of sharing of clothes between women generationally, and Roki does worship her aunt a little bit. You can tell she looks up to her and has learned much from her.
At the very beginning, when Jax is teaching Roki how to take from the plant without killing it, and this passing on of cultural knowledge, Roki idolizes Jax a little bit, but there’s this influence of her mother as well, which comes through in the purple jacket. Roki is raised by women in her life. Those are her style influences, but she’s also at this point in girlhood where she’s not hyper-aware of how watched you are as a woman in the world, and she’s still kind of dressed chaotically and for comfort, wearing vans in the river and getting them all wet. So, there’s a feeling of innocence still in her clothes.
AF: That purple jacket is like a centerpiece in the film. Whenever Roki puts it on, it’s like she’s hugging her mother. Was the jacket always scripted to look like it, and how did you land on this piece?
Higdon: It was scripted as a purple jacket with long shiny fringe, and it specifies that it’s a piece from one of the stripping costumes, like a cowboy set. You don’t really see the other pieces of the set we made, but we made little, short shafts with the same fringe. Erica was pretty specific with this jacket and knew what the origin of it was going to be and that it would end up as a dancing shawl, a piece of regalia.
Erica sent me an inspiration photo from a set that she had seen before. There were a few iterations of the jacket that I drew out, just experimenting with a couple of other options to show her what we could realistically do in three weeks. There was one jacket that was the standout from the beginning and it’s the one that you see in the film. It all had to come together quickly, so we had to be specific and go with our gut in many ways in terms of fabric, fringe, and color.
AF: I’m curious about the powwow and regalia used for all the dancers in the scene. How did the styles represent different tribes and communities, and how was Roki differentiated among the dancers?
Higdon: In fancy dance, the style of dancing that Roki and Jax also dance, the regalia for that dance specifically is a huge shawl with really, really long ribbon as the fringe rather than the polyester fringe that we used on her jacket. In other dancing shawls you see in the arena, that fringe style on her jacket is used. I went to a powwow supply store and picked out that fringe and it’s very long and fine, and you don’t really find that fringe in many places other than powwow supply stores because it is made specifically to be danced in, and that movement is really intentional.
We were very fortunate to have such a wonderful native community in Oklahoma who were willing and able to come and throw us a powwow, and they all very generously agreed to wear the regalia on screen. Regalia is very personal and it’s usually made in the home. A lot of time, effort, and craftsmanship goes into it. Even if we had been able to do it ourselves, I don’t think the regalia would’ve been as rich, varied, and personal as people bringing their own because, like you said, regalia is specific to the type of powwow dancing you’re doing. It’s specific to your tribe. It can be even more specific than tribes specific to your clan and your family.
I knew they would bring their best and want to show off. I think that’s why it’s so spectacular. Roki stands out because she is in that solid color. Most people are in multicolor. Her fringe is a little bit different than the other fancy dancer fringe. It’s really special.
AF: Did you have a favorite regalia that someone came in wearing?
Higdon: I don’t know how much it was on screen, but there was a northern traditional dancer. They wear more like buck skin dresses with a long fringe hanging off these yolks on the back of their dresses. The yolks are usually fully beaded, so the dresses weigh 30 to 40 pounds. The women’s dances are really graceful, and I always marvel at them because the dance is a lot more contained and focuses more on the elegance of movement.
This woman designed her regalia around the color white and then a rose, which is seen in a lot of northern regalia. It was head to toe in white beads, white buck, and skin fringe. She also had these beautiful beaded pieces in her hair and on necklaces, and her moccasins were brilliant red roses. It’s just breathtaking. There is such artistry in native communities.