The sneaker brand wasn’t the only collaborator on the shoot; Thomas worked closely with costume designer Kumiko Ogawa for the more traditional Japanese costumes. When it came to O-Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) snow-white kimono, Thomas knew that the intricacies of the traditional garment needed to be perfect for the assassin-turned-Yakuza boss. “Kimonos are such a very specific art form. There’s such skill and making them—it’s hundreds of hundreds of yards of fabric. It was so fun to collaborate with her and have these cultural counterpoints,” she says. “That world had to be very traditional, very real, because the audience would know if it wasn’t authentic. And that really is O-Ren’s character. She had to be intimidating.”
The white of Liu’s kimono was something of a foil to Thurman’s bright yellow tracksuit. Emblematic of a more buttoned-up character at the peak of a hierarchical world, O-Ren’s clothing was—quite literally—very black and white. Not to mention, it was the perfect canvas in a notoriously bloody film. “White traditionally, on camera, you’re gonna see blood. The starkness of the white works so cinematically that there was no question about it,” Thomas says. Rex FeaturesEven minor characters had strong sartorial choices. We first meet the assassin Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) in the hospital as she prepares to finish off The Bride. She strolls down the hall in a white coat, pants, and shoes with black trompe l’oeil belts and pockets from Moschino’s fall 2001 collection (worn on the runway by Alek Wek), with a matching eyepatch and a red umbrella. In another scene, Hannah’s character sticks to the color scheme, but changes into a slightly sexed-up take on a traditional nurse’s uniform with a red cross on her eyepatch.
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