this story about “Corsage” costume designer Monika Buttinger first appeared in the Below-the-Line issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” depicts a year in the life of Elisabeth (Vicky Krieps), a 19th century Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. As she approaches her 40th birthday, Elisabeth increasingly rebels against rules and expectations, giving the story a distinctly modern twist.
When costume designer Monika Buttinger first read the script, she knew it wasn’t a “normal period piece” but something that required a different approach. “It was clear to me that we had to work on some kind of fashionable interpretation for the actual viewers of the film,” she said. Buttinger began to experiment with a “special style” that would honor both the character and the historical figure. “Elisabeth was really an influencer in her time,” she said. “She was an icon for decades, which was very unusual, I think. Each woman focused on her style, on her clothes ”.
The Empress was known for “tight lacing,” the practice of wearing an extremely tight corset (body in French) to make the waist appear smaller. Buttinger built each look around a cinched waist and kept the rest of the silhouette simple with straight lines and minimalist décor. “Like the title of the movie, the corset is the cage of the empress,” she said. It’s an apt metaphor for both 19th century standards of beauty and the stifling effect of life under patriarchy and in the public eye.
When the film’s original shooting date was pushed up, Buttinger scrambled to gather as much material as possible. “The only thing he knew was that we didn’t want to have too much color or too much pattern,” he said. “This is how I arrived in Italy, I stayed on the mountain of fabrics for three days. And we came back with (at least) 300 meters of fabric”.
Buttinger mapped out a “world of colour” for each place Elisabeth visits, often corresponding to her emotional state. At Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, a muted palette of silver, gold, gray and beige reflects her feelings about royal life. During an English escapade, he dons a bright red-orange dress. In situations “where she feels good,” she wears mauve, her favorite color. And because Elisabeth embraces a certain darkness, the color scheme follows her lead. “We wanted to show how the monarchy collapses or comes to an end,” Buttinger said.
No matter what she wears, Elisabeth always seems cut off from her surroundings. That effect was partially achieved by limiting the other actors to just one or two looks, mostly borrowed from wardrobe warehouses. Even important figures like Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister) or Prince Rudolf (Aaron Friesz) are dressed less ostentatiously than they would have been in real life.
While Buttinger usually had free rein in creating the costumes, there was one notable exception. At the end of the film, Elisabeth poses for what she declares will be the last time, just as she did in real life. Kreutzer instructed Buttinger to recreate her unusual outfit (white dress, ruby necklace, floor-length wig) as faithfully as possible. But both in real life and in “Corsage,” it seems Elisabeth may have had the last laugh.
“Later, I heard from a specialist that this dress may never have existed,” Buttinger said. “It was the imagination of a painter, and it was the last painting she represented.”
Read more of the issue below the line here.
