Cate Blanchett knew exactly what look she wanted for her character Catherine Ravenscroft in the limited Apple TV+ series “Disclaimer.” Despite playing a wealthy, award-winning journalist, she didn’t want to look like one, so she’d send costume designer Jany Temime pictures of boho society women as examples.
Temime wanted to make sure Catherine’s look wasn’t just feminine, but sexy, too. “If I had dressed her in trousers or big sweaters or shirts, you never would believe the story,” Temime says. Blanchett also suggested a touch of red in everything she wore — whether it was a scarf or a ring, something not always obvious to the audience, but to Catherine, an important color.
In “Disclaimer,” Catherine’s life is upended by the publication of the novel “The Perfect Stranger,” a very lightly fictionalized account of an incident that actually happened to Catherine 20 years earlier at an Italian beach resort. In the book, she has a brief tryst with much younger man, Jonathan, who ends up drowning trying to save Catherine’s young son. But was their affair consensual or something much more sinister? The novel, written by Jonathan’s mother (Lesley Manville) before her death and published by his father, Stephen (Kevin Kline), blames Catherine for Jonathan’s death. Kline is out to ruin Catherine’s life.
At first, Catherine’s colors are strong: blacks, reds and green stripes to reflect her dominance in the world. Blouses and scarves epitomized the flowy chic that Blanchett wanted for the character. “In her mind, she was a rich woman and wanted to be arty,” Temime says.
But when the novel is released, Catherine’s world collapses. “Slowly, she doesn’t control her life anymore, and the color starts to fade,” the costume designer explains.
In flashbacks, we see a younger Catherine (Leila George) on the beach with her son. She’s wearing a red bikini and floral, sheer cover-up. Showrunner Alfonso Cuarón wanted the bikini to be minimal and not overtly sexy. Temime needed to find the right shade of red, one that would work well on camera. After endless searching, Temime turned to a company that custom-made the two-piece that was used. The look was so vital to the story that she ended up requiring 30 replicas.
Temime looked at different options for the sheer cover-up that Catherine wears over the bikini. Eventually, when she found one that could work, it needed several adjustments.
“We removed the lining and kept the sleeves. I didn’t want silk, because it’s too elegant,” Temime says. “I wanted something that a 30-something mom would wear, but she doesn’t know it’s transparent.”
Stephen not only blames Catherine for the death of Jonathan but also for the death of his beloved wife. In his grief, he wears one of his wife’s cardigans, a pink piece that appears to have had better days.
And Kline hated it. “It was itchy,” Temime says. The cardigan was custom-made with a blend of mohair and wool. “It took us so long to find the right color,” she says, noting that she started with a shade close to baby pink, but Cuarón nixed it. “Maybe he’d heard that ‘Barbie’ was coming, so we needed to avoid that. We went with a pink mixed with gray and one made with different wools,” Temime says.
Temime’s own robe made an appearance in one scene. “I found it 20 years ago, and it’s from the 1900s. I showed it to Cate, and she loved it,” she recalls.
“If you look carefully, you will see that Catherine’s dressing gown is the same color as the cardigan. That’s the link,” Temime says. All the costumes had double meanings and hidden color clues that connected the characters to what really happened in Italy.
By the end, Catherine confronts Stephen, who has been destroying her life. She goes to his house in a thick winter coat, one Temime bought off the rack.
“I liked it because it looks like she took a blanket at home and she wrapped herself with it,” Temime says. It’s as if the coat is protecting her from the world.
A red piece of fabric was sewn into the back of her collar, in keeping with Blanchett’s request for something red to always be a part of her wardrobe. Temime says, “No one knows it’s there, but it’s there.”
