For Guillermo del Toro, Frankenstein isn’t just a story of creation, it’s a portrait of identity. Every stitch, clasp, and shimmer of fabric carries emotional weight.
Costume designer Kate Hawley, who previously worked with del Toro on Crimson Peak and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, approached the wardrobe as an extension of each character’s soul.
Dressing a Modern Gothic
Set during the Crimean War, the film spans decades of Victor Frankenstein’s life. Hawley researched 19th-century tailoring but filtered it through a contemporary lens. “It’s a fantasy at the end of the day,” she explained, “so we’ve made allowances.”
Del Toro didn’t want a museum piece, he wanted movement, color, and sensuality. “I don’t want fusty old period for this,” he told her.
That direction gave rise to a visual world where Victorian formality meets rock-star energy. Victor (Oscar Isaac) wears plaid trousers, a tailored coat, and scarlet gloves, a symbol of his pride and guilt. Hawley described him as “a dandy with a punk edge,” taking inspiration from Rudolf Nureyev and the swagger of 1970s Soho.
By the film’s end, the elegance collapses. Both Victor and the Creature become “wild men,” wrapped in rough furs and weather-beaten fabrics that mark the erosion of civility.
The Creature’s Evolution
Jacob Elordi’s Creature begins almost naked to the world, swathed only in white surgical wraps that reveal his stitched form. As he learns to survive, his clothing mirrors that evolution: a Crimean soldier’s coat, scavenged and reshaped, becomes his armor.
Hawley and Elordi tested multiple versions of the coat to keep his physical grace visible beneath the layers.
Elizabeth’s Jewelry and the Language of Light
Mia Goth’s Elizabeth is del Toro’s most ethereal figure, her wardrobe built around botanical and insect motifs that connect her to nature and science. Hawley studied beetle wings and cellular patterns, embedding subtle fractal embroidery into silk and taffeta. Her dresses shimmer with iridescent fabrics, pale greens, golds, and opals that shift color like insect shells.
Her jewelry follows the same logic: organic shapes resembling vines, thoraxes, and wing casings, crafted to catch candlelight. They’re not purely ornamental; they signal Elizabeth’s empathy and curiosity, her way of studying the world through beauty.
Tiffany & Co. joined the film’s design team, providing both archival and newly crafted pieces that deepened the story’s emotional texture. The collaboration bridges Gothic romance with historical craftsmanship, Elizabeth’s jewels aren’t simply adornment but markers of her moral and emotional world. Among the highlights are the Wade Necklace, a platinum and diamond piece from around 1900, and a Scarab pendant originally designed by Meta Overbeck in 1914. Each piece carries Tiffany’s signature blend of elegance and symbolism, echoing the film’s themes of life, death, and resurrection.
Two accessories define her presence: a Crimean shawl patterned with spirals and a bonnet with colored veils that Hawley described as “a halo.” Del Toro used light through that veil to mark Elizabeth’s moments of moral clarity, a soft counterpoint to Victor’s red-stained gloves.
The Meaning Behind the Materials
Throughout Frankenstein, fabric becomes theology. Red represents guilt and bloodline; green evokes decay and rebirth; white signals purity soon to be broken. The jewelry glints like relics, hinting that every character is worshiping something, science, love, or forgiveness.
Hawley called it “an opera in thread and metal.” Victor’s costumes echo the arrogance of creation; Elizabeth’s gowns capture compassion; the Creature’s garments record experience like scars. Together, they form a visual chronicle of del Toro’s central theme: that love and ruin often wear the same clothes.
Key Details: Frankenstein
- Release dates: In select theaters October 17, 2025; streaming on Netflix November 7, 2025
- Director & screenplay: Guillermo del Toro
- Based on: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
- Producers: Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, Scott Stuber
- Main cast: Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein), Jacob Elordi (the Creature), Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, David Bradley, Lars Mikkelsen, Christian Convery, Charles Dance, Christoph Waltz
The Poster
