Janie Bryant (‘1923’ costume designer): ‘I guess the Western vibes run in my blood’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I guess the Western vibes run in my blood,” declares costume designer and self-described “Southern belle” Janie Bryant about returning to the genre this season for “1923.” The Paramount + drama is a prequel to Taylor Sheridan‘s massively popular genre “Yellowstone,” and is one of many Westerns on which Bryant has worked. The designer previous worked on the first “Yellowstone’ prequel, the limited series “1883,” and won an Emmy in 2005 for her costumes for the HBO series “Deadwood.” Check out Gold Derby’s exclusive video interview with Bryant above.
Although only 40 years separate the settings of “1883” and “1923,” Bryant reveals the stark differences in the periods when it comes to costumes, particularly for the women. She describes the impact of the changes in women’s overall looks in the early 1920s. “Women’s wear drastically changed,” she explains. “Women were throwing out their corsets. They were cutting their hair. It was really like an abomination for a lot of cultures that women were cutting their hair off into bobs. So the twenties were definitely a 360 in terms of the freedom women were having in this period.”
While there was more of a consistent uniform for the men of the time, Bryant still found way to differentiate the looks of each character. She points directly to the contrast in the color palettes of young Jack Dutton (Darren Mann) and family patriarch Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford). “Jack’s color palette was more youthful in blues and blue-grays and the maroons,” she explains. “Jacob’s color palette was much colder, darker, almost edgier.”
Beyond the world of Montana, Bryant also needed to craft looks for Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and Alex (Julia Schlaepfer) as their love story took them from the African desert to the seas of Malta. For Alex, a British royal looking for her own independence, Bryant wanted to costume to reflect the character’s growth throughout the season as Alex find both love and liberation. “Her safari costume basically goes on the same journey that she goes on,” explains Bryant. “So it’s broken down with every episode. She is shedding the elements of her culture as the days go by with Spencer, and I really saw her costume following that story with her.”
Bryant argues that her favorite days are when the actors on set with all of the background players because she can see the entire world of the series coming together in front of her. “I really see that world totally come together with all of the props and the set and the cars,” she exclaims. “All the things come together in that specific period. It’s so magical. It’s a beautiful thing.”
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