“There’s definitely this trope of the female hero that’s always in this very sexy, badass [outfit],” Thomas says. “I kind of wanted to play with the gender part of it—her embodying the boys club and borrowing from the boys, and taking that strength and using it.” Instead, Thomas borrowed Bruce Lee’s yellow suit from Game of Death, and made it her own. The decision to turn a sexy catsuit into a two-piece tracksuit was one of practicality, too. Thurman had given birth to her son, Levon, in 2002, just prior to filming. “She was not super excited about wearing a onesie after just giving birth,” Thomas recalls. “She was like, ‘Seriously, Quentin, you want me to wear like a onesie?’” So Thomas devised the now-famous tracksuit, allowing Thurman some ease for breastfeeding and pumping. “My approach was to keep the same sort of visual lines, but to break it up so that she would be more comfortable. At the time, I changed the lines a little bit so it wasn’t so like straight, I made it a little bit more of a flare because it was more it was just more flattering,” she says. “I gave her a little more shape and made it so that she could zip in and out of it so she can actually breastfeed because it was too hard to take it off all the time.”
Thomas pulled inspiration directly from the runway for her adaptation of the Bride’s suit. “Prada was doing these really great moto flared pants,” she says. “You could see how it was definitely an influence at the time.” KILL BILL, Lucy Liu, Uma Thurman, 2003, (c) Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection©Miramax/Courtesy Everett CollectionAnother piece of Thurman’s classic costume is all but inescapable today: Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 sneakers. The shoes weren’t in production at the time of filming, though Thomas wanted to model them off of Lee’s Game of Death look, so she reached out to the brand for help. “They did truly bring them back for us,” she says. “We had so many pairs of them. It wasn’t like we needed like two pairs—we needed like 60 pairs, between Uma and her stunt doubles, and all the blood.” Today, the sneakers have just as much relevance as they did 20 years ago. No matter how many celebrities try out the style, the Mexico 66 (especially the popular black and yellow colorway) is inextricably linked with Kill Bill.
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