‘The Franchise’ Costumes Are a Love Letter to Film Crews

Costume designers Michelle Clapton and Sinéad Kidao tell IndieWire about getting the look of big franchise films so right it goes wrong and knowing what shoes to put on a PA.

We all know how a superhero costume should look in a movie courtesy of Edna Mode: Bold, dramatic, heroic! 

But “The Franchise” shows us just how much it takes to get a costume looking right because the on-set suits that both Tecto (Billy Magnussen as Adam) and Eye (Richard E. Grant as Peter) wear — when they’re not sniping at each other in puffy coats, of course — look foamy, fake, and just a little bit wrong. Series costume designers Michele Clapton and Sinéad Kidao turn their very sharp (if not evil, hyper sun-powered) eyes to both the in-universe film the characters are trying to make and the ecosystem of film sets and the fashion choices of various departments. 

From PAs wearing cheap, ill-advised Converse to the camera department geared up with enough kit to launch a mountaineering expedition to everyone’s swag from other jobs — keep an eye out for Steph’s (Jessica Hynes) T-shirts with fake film titles — the costume department on “The Franchise” got to send up films, film sets, and themselves. 

Clapton began the project by approaching it with as much realism as possible, especially the superhero costumes. Working with pilot director Sam Mendes and showrunner Jon Brown, they teased out the comic book backstory for Tecto, Eye, and the other Centurions of the titular franchise. The chunky silver earmuffs that Tecto wears, for instance, are a compromise: The character’s backstory is that he can “hear the Earth crying,” so he needs some sort of protection, but Clapton also wanted Magnussen’s hair visible so that as actor Adam, he could always be tossing it and fussing with it. 

“It had to be something that allowed this flop of his hair to fall forward,” Clapton told IndieWire. Likewise, Clapton and Mendes settled on Tecto having big lifts in his boots so that Magnussen’s height would change enormously depending on whether his character was in or out of his superhero costume. 

Clapton hadn’t designed any superhero costumes before, but she spoke to colleagues at Weta, who talked her through the process, which often begins with concept art and requires a body cast of the actors. Then costume designers take a foam mold and layer the fabric camera-tested to read with the correct look — even if they look too stiff and artificial in real life. 

“I think our construction was pretty similar to the big companies [that make super suits]. I had a great illustrator who works on a lot of Batman movies, and we just went everywhere to find elements that would give [the costumes] depth,” Clapton said. “We knew that it had to last for a series so we had to come up with ways that we could replicate it for stunts. And that it had to look good even when you took elements off.” 

Kidao, who picked up from Clapton when production of “The Franchise” resumed after the WGA and SAG strikes, told IndieWire that you really can’t shortchange what a costume shop-wide effort it is to make superhero costumes read as the correct level of movie-ready, as opposed to just very good cosplay. 

“We had big workshops with prop modelers, people who did the dyeing, printing, shoemakers, jewelry makers, cutters. They’re all there, doing the incredible amount of stitchwork and detail to go into any of these costumes,” Kidao said. 

No work is ever wasted, and perhaps never more so than on “The Franchise.” Much of the design work and boards that Clapton and her team built for the superhero characters became part of the set dressing on “The Franchise” itself.  “It was really like making a production,” Clapton said. “We had to treat it seriously like we were doing a proper universe because I think if you start from it being a comedy, something funny, I don’t think it works.” 

Clapton and Kidao both brought that same level of realism to costuming for the rest of the Tecto crew on “The Franchise” as they did with the superhero costumes. And it started from the ground up. “For us, you usually look at the footwear first, and then you work up from there, and it might be Blundstones, or it might be mountain bike boots, or it might be Converse,” Kidao said. “You can quite quickly identify people on a film set, and we all do it all the time, [who] works in what department.”  

It’s caricaturing to a degree, of course, but the grips and the camera department do need a different kind of toolbelt from the kit that the makeup team has for touch-ups. Lanyards and backpacks and the level of wear and durability all played a part in differentiating the crew (as well as the background actors from the show’s actual crew). Clapton and Kidao also use all those Carharts and wrap jackets to show just how much our lead characters are spiraling. 

With incoming producer Anita (Aya Cash), Clapton wanted her entrance to include an actual red cape — showing not only that she probably has a very active account with Pret a Porter but that she’s throwing her weight around. As the production becomes more troubled and Anita gets closer to First AD Daniel (Himesh Patel), Kidao toned down her level of fashion. But only just. 

“[The idea was] she’s sort of cosplaying being part of the crew. Like, she’s wearing the same stuff, but a much more expensive version of it,” Kidao said. “When we look at pictures of directors on set and they’ve got a producer next to them, you can tell they get paid a lot more than the people around them. Their boots are that little bit more expensive. They might have that cashmere lining. [Anita’s] wet weather coat was a designer; it’s a beautiful version of it.” 

No detail was too small to send up. Crew jackets and T-shirts were meticulously aged to look like Daniel or Steph had worn them for a while. Kidao delighted in putting the in-universe costume designer in some very nice jumpers, and Clapton gave European director Eric (Daniel Brühl) toe socks for whenever he was trying to relax in his trailer. “We had all those just funny little details that I think other crew will pick up on,” Clapton said. 

Making a love letter to other film crews can really spur creativity, although there’s always a little bit of danger to it. Kidao and hair and makeup designer Naomi Donne pitched Jon Brown on all sorts of weird creatures Tecto could be fighting, including the set of lava monsters that briefly hold up Tecto during an action beat. 

“We were kind of concerned that we might be more likely to become characters than the lava creatures,” Kidao joked. “We were just always walking around and trying to think about what we could come up with for new characters and for all of the background characters. It was a lot of fun.”

“The Franchise” is streaming on Max.