‘The Color Purple’ Costume Designer on Creating Taraji P. Henson Look – The Hollywood Reporter

Francine Jamison-Tanchuck worked as an assistant to costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers (“swatching fabrics and dressing background players,” she recalls) on Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Jamison-Tanchuck was then a costume supervisor for the women characters, “because in those particular days, we had two supervisors on a film: one for the ladies, one for the men,” she explains. “I think it’s better to have just one supervisor, but that’s how they broke it down in the past.” Nearly 40 years later, Jamison-Tanchuck was the head costume designer of Blitz Bazawule’s musical adaptation of the property. She saw the stage show with “some girlfriends of mine, we flew to New York for my birthday celebration,” she says. “To me, The Color Purple is like It’s a Wonderful Life or any other classic film, it just continues to touch audiences of every generation. It has so much meaning and just really reverberates around the world.”

When singer Shug Avery, played by Taraji P. Henson, arrives in town, she finds protagonist Celie (Fantasia Barrino) broken and battered by life. “The palette and the colors and the textures were so important. Celie’s world, when she was going through the abuse, her colors [were] a lot more somber and darker or neutral, until Shug Avery comes to town and she really introduces Celie into another world,” Jamison-Tanchuck explains. “Blitz and I thought red is definitely the color, in order to make a statement. Red is just something that reverberates and resonates, and it just is an amazing color with everyone.”

In this scene, Shug performs at the Juke Joint, a local watering hole where she gives attendees a showstopping number after arriving via canoe. Initially, the dress looked quite different. “In the very beginning, something that I was trying out was another concept that was a little bit more sack-y, for the ’20s. But the sack-iness of the ’20s really doesn’t work for Shug. It had to be a bit more fitted. She had to be able to dance — she was on top of the tables. The costume had to really be able to move with the choreography and with her body.” After Jamison-Tanchuck’s initial sketch, her vision was brought to life pre-construction by her digital illustrator, Shane Ballard.

The centerpiece of this look is Shug’s massive feathered headpiece, which Jamison-Tanchuck conceptualized from scratch, employing a milliner to custom build her idea. “There were companies that were doing feather headpieces, but this is my vision, the ostrich feathers.” The beads dangling in front are a nostalgic nod to Jamison-Tanchuck’s predecessor: “I wanted to borrow from my dear friend and mentor Aggie Rodgers, the designer on the first [film], the pearls that were just draping around the headdress.” (In Spielberg’s version, Shug, played by Margaret Avery, dons a fitted white headpiece similarly dripping with strands of pearls.)

The fringe at the bottom of the dress is composed of three tiered layers of beads and sequins. “When you hold the dress, it is really heavy,” concedes Jamison-Tanchuck. “It’s got to be at least 10 pounds. When I was trying it on Taraji, because she came in for about three fittings for this outfit, I said, ‘Taraji, it’s pretty heavy.’ She says, ‘Oh, I’ve worn more heavy than that.’ ” Jamison-Tanchuck installed slits up the sides to maximize Henson’s ability to move. “She was able to go into the music she was hearing in her head. She was singing it herself. And I knew that this was it.”

A crucial part of designing any look is figuring out how to make sure all the pieces work in harmony. “I had to envision how all of it would move together: The red velvet gloves, the jewelry, everything. Our wonderful ager-dyer, Darren Manzari, ended up hand painting and blitzing out the shoes,” she says, concluding: “Everything had to work, from head to toe.”

In case of malfunctions on set, both the dress and headpieces were made three times. “Everything was tripled, because once she is moving, you really do not want to interrupt the direction, the choreography,” says Jamison-Tanchuck. “If anything happens, and there’s a snag on one of those beads, there’s no way you’re going to be able to put that back together.” Jamison-Tanchuck reveals that they ended up using two of the three dresses constructed while filming the rousing scene, which, she says, had everyone on set dancing. “Everyone was moving to the music — I think even Miss Oprah herself.”

This story first appeared in a January standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.