How Helen Huang Designed Grounded Costumes for 'The Penguin'

How do you dress a Penguin?

It's a question that's been answered many times, by Tim Burton and DC artists and others.

But in his newest iteration, costume designer Helen Huang was tasked with giving the character and expansive cast of The Penguin their looks, and you might be surprised at some of her inspirations—and how this version of Oz Cobb is dressed as more of a working-class hero, rather than the tuxedoed supervillain we're used to.

But these unique takes on characters, both familiar and new, lend HBO's new spin-off series air of gravitas not often afforded to comic book adaptations. Huang's specific goal was timelessness—the looks are familiar, but not trendy, keeping all the characters grounded while not pinning them to a specific decade. It's a delicate dance expertly navigated by Huang, a two-time Emmy winner.

Huang was kind enough to speak with No Film School about her work on the series, how she showed each character's growth through costume, and how up-and-coming costume designers should educate themselves.

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Editor's note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

No Film School: I spoke with your production designer, Kalina Ivanov. She told me that you all were thinking about Scarface and French Connection, New York in the '80s. From your perspective as a costume designer, what did that look like in your process?

Helen Huang: They did make a lot of references to French Connection and Scarface. Klute was in there. For me, when they talk about these movies as a reference, I tend to think of a timelessness involved in the world, which is something that we tried very, very hard to achieve.

That time in New York, in New York's history, has a very grounded, grittier texture to it. And then, with this IP coming off Matt [Reeves]' movie, it's grounded but still very stylized. I feel like that balance was always in the forefront of my mind, trying to achieve that balance.

And then the other thing was making the image—between Kalina's production design, the cinematography, and then costumes—making the image emotional.

I started with that approach. I looked at a lot of 1980s New York street photography, a lot of pictures of people on the street, on the subways, to get a feel and understanding for what a timeless look is. It does help with the emotional quality that [the story] does hit fall/winter. It leans into that. I feel like that always gives the visual quality something very special that you don't get with costume with summer dressing.

So we looked at a lot of images of that, and I have some very specific images of how each section of Gotham looked. For example, with the Falcones, we didn't want them to feel like 1990s crime bosses. I really wanted to feel this idea of an institution, the crime institution. I leaned very heavily on European aesthetics and images for the family.

So you get to feel this contrast between them, a crime institution, and then Oz, who's coming in, that's very new money. It's just to really focus in on what references are eternal references that audiences have in their minds. They think back to older movies, things that they've read, photography that they've seen. So it does not feel like, for the costumes, that people just went to Bloomingdale's and shopped for their clothes. It's very much about capturing a history and a depth to the project.

Colin Farrell in The PenguinPhotograph by Macall Polay/HBO

NFS: I read that you also looked at John Belushi as an inspiration for Oz.

Huang: A lot of times actors do character work. I do character work when I think of dressing someone. I always try to give them an alter ego.

For me, I felt when you look at John Belushi, there is this sort of rawness and energy to him that I feel is very kindred to how Oz is on the page. There's also this element of traditional masculinity that John Belushi has that I considered a lot when I was dressing Oz. Especially in contrast to Victor [Rhenzy Feliz]—how Oz presents his masculinity, how Victor presents his masculinity, how those function within crime.

The other aspect of Belushi was there's an unkemptness about him that I really wanted to bring into Oz. Take him down from the suits and the ties and strip him down to his desires.

I think with the clothes, we try to throughout the series focus a lot on almost derobing Oz and for the audience in that visual way to make him someone that is more down-to-earth and relatable and not just very suited-up in every iteration. He's a very suited-up type of person.

NFS: There is the classic Penguin tux, and you didn't go that way immediately. What does that mean to you in a practical sense? Is it removing layers, is it roughing him up?

Huang: I think for us it's removing layers. Trying to take him out of just the dress shirts. We did, toward the end, give him a leather jacket, which was a reference to an '80s leather jacket. We used different textures—the leather jacket on top of his suit.

He didn't have complete suits, they were just all separates. That was the beginning of it. And then when Oz really wants to present himself, we did put him in a suit that matched. But even later on, it was like a military coat that we based his look off of, and more workwear-type clothes that we gave him. Those were the elements that we were considering.

Obviously, because of the IP and because of how The Batman world functions, it does have to be very stylized. Me and Colin, we did talk a lot about, "How do you achieve that?" Through a little bit of alteration of the silhouette, but not making him jokey in any way. I think when we took him away from his suits, we really paid a lot of attention to what cuts are his pants, how his shirt looks, how his jacket weighs on his body. Those are all the elements that we looked at.

Cristin Milioti in The Penguin
HBO/Provided

NFS: For Sofia, she definitely goes on a journey. You see her looking very traditionally feminine at the start. Can you talk about that costume journey?

Huang: In the beginning, Lauren LeFranc and Matt Reeves talked a lot about presenting her. She had just come out of Arkham, but they wanted her emotional state to be contained. They didn't want her to feel not put together. They really wanted her to feel like an enigma to Oz, where he can't really place her.

The challenge with that is finding a silhouette that is both interesting and feminine at the same time. Trying to figure out something that the audience hasn't seen recently in terms of how a feminine woman should dress. And I was looking at a lot of Karesh from the '60s, that very put-together [look], but the hemline is short. So there's this kind of internal rebellion to that.

There's a Kate Moss editorial from Harper's Bazaar in 2013 that we looked at a lot where it was a lot of '90s does '60s silhouettes. That just felt really right for the character. It's very fine put-together clothes. But in the silhouette, there's something slightly off about the femininity. It almost feels a little bit rebellious, but a little bit of a younger woman at times.

As she progresses, we talked a lot about how we don't want her to feel like a woman unwinding, because that's not the female story that we're trying to tell. And so we did really try to think about her in a way where it's a woman coming into her power. As the series progressed, her textures become very different, and the colors become more saturated, and we do start seeing more skin involved in her clothes, but in a way where she takes ownership of her body. That's how we try to transition her into the last episode.

NFS: You also have several different groups of criminals that we see. What are the basics of how you establish the different looks for those groups?

Huang: The center of it is the Falcone family, so we did start with them first. We looked at European old money, Italian Riviera, that type of imagery. We even looked at some Picasso images, for that relaxed wealth that only comes with more generational wealth.

And even with the people that work for them in terms of Oz and everybody else, we try to dress them as people who are more from the community and don't have as much money. Because I think that needs to be talked about. It's a big thing in this story, how crime presents itself as an opportunity for people when they don't have the opportunity in their institutions, like the city failing them, and aspects like that. We really wanted to capture that.

In terms of the other gangs, we tried to look at very specific references for them, and to give them a feeling of being from uniquely different parts of the city. What type of businesses they run really informed us a lot about what they should look like.

We try not to repeat the silhouettes, repeat the colorways for each of the separate groups because we do want them to stand out in terms of—even though they're not on screen as much—having their own backstories and their own needs and their own wants for their communities.

Colin Farrell in The PenguinHBO/Provided

NFS: Is there anything on the project that was a particular challenge for you?

Huang: I think a lot of the challenges that present a production nowadays are definitely money, because streaming has changed, and it changed while we were filming this project.

The other thing is obviously time, because with television, it's actually harder than movies in many aspects because you're shooting eight hours—eight little movies. And you're expected to do it in half the time with half the amount of prep. And so it is very, very hard on the crew to do it.

And then the other thing, which is unique to this project, is there was the writers' and actors' strike in the middle, which did affect us and affect production. When we went back again, it just came with its own set of issues that arose from stopping production for so long.

NFS: What advice do you have for an up-and-coming costume designer?

Huang: I would say be interested in culture and history, whether you are interested in particular clothes history. I think culture and history affects the way people dress, and we wouldn't have clothes if it weren't for those things. So I think to study those things is very helpful.

The other thing is to watch a lot of directors, a lot of movies, to read a lot. Because when you go into interviews, and when you're talking to directors and writers and producers, they're looking for someone who can articulate how you could help them achieve their vision.

You have to do the research and watch and understand how costumes in each project, in each genre in the hands of each director, affect the outcome. You could have the same subject, but five directors will have five different asks of you as a costume designer. And you have to understand how to visually put that together for them to achieve what they want on screen.

And then my last suggestion would be to have a perspective. They're hiring you for a perspective. There are a lot of costume designers, and they're hiring you to see the story that you want to tell. And if that story that you want to tell, what you're interested in, marries with what they want to say. You have to go into interviews, you have to have that language developed in order to have those conversations with the people that will hire you.

Colin Farrell in The PenguinHBO/Provided

NFS: Is there anything that you wanted to add about the show or your work?

Huang: I really think this project is very special. I think the story that they wanted to tell was very special. I loved all the characters in it. I really, really love Victor as a character in the story. Even though he's not the glossy bit, because he's not Oz, because he's not Sofia, we put a lot of attention into what he wears. Because he's almost like the soul of the series. He's Oz's moral conundrum throughout the series.

The first three episodes, for his clothes, everything was handmade for him. Nothing was bought, just so he could have that timeless 1990s look. So I do want to add that he is really a character that's very dear to my heart and one that we worked extremely hard on.