Staff writer Lamisa Worthy unravels the technical brilliance behind Frankenstein‘s costumes, makeup, and set design.
Say what you will about Guillermo del Toro’s reimagining of Shelley’s Frankenstein, but it cannot be faulted for its technical excellence, and the Academy shares these sentiments.
The film won Oscars for Best Costume Design for Kate Hawley, Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey, and Best Production Design for Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau.
Costume Design:
Kate Hawley’s work is nothing short of a masterclass in visual dramaturgy. Now with an Oscar to accompany her BAFTA, Hawley approaches costume in Frankenstein with a poetic philosophy exceeding pure aesthetics: “where anatomy, color, and the spine align, the theory of nature emerges”.
Most striking is her command of colour. The film’s palette is rich and expressive, complementing del Toro’s intentions seamlessly.
The use of red as a visual motif is particularly inspired. It appears first as the extravagant veil worn by Victor’s mother, Claire, and thereafter follows Victor like an inherited wound through details like red gloves and red ties. This becomes a symbol of maternal loss, trauma, and vulnerability that haunts Victor’s childhood and quietly festers beneath his intellectual ambitions.
By contrast, Elizabeth is draped in verdant greens and vibrant blues, aligning her with nature and vitality. Hawley’s designs for her are some of the most stunning ensembles we’ve seen on screen in 2025: layered fabrics, delicate accessories, and silhouettes that offer a tasteful blend of period accuracy and contemporary creativity. Her wedding dress, an organza gown with ribboned sleeves to mimic the Creature’s bandages, subtly forges a visual kinship between the two.
Even Elizabeth’s jewellery, created in collaboration with Tiffany, extends this symbolism. The carnelian rosary necklace she wears encapsulates what Hawley describes as “nature meeting religion”, an intention further seen in the halo-like bonnets and veils that frame her. These designs do not simply clothe; they gesture toward the film’s obsession with the themes of science, faith, and nature and become visual arguments themselves.
Hawley’s triumph lies in her talent to craft what can only be dubbed the very anatomy of emotion. To have awarded this Oscar elsewhere would have been, quite frankly, a disservice to her mastery.
Makeup & Hairstyling:
Mike Hill’s praise of Jacob Elordi for sitting over 400 hours in the makeup chair is itself a feat worthy of recognition. But the innovation of the Makeup and Hairstyling team built the corporeal foundation of the film.
Elordi’s Creature departs radically from its cinematic predecessors. Instead of crude stitches, we find something more aesthetically refined. The use of 19th-century-inspired silicone prosthetics transforms the figure into a fractured marble statue, both beautiful and eerie in its restraint.
This aesthetic choice has significantly divided critics. Some lament the loss of overt grotesquery, believing this rendition to be too palatable. Yet this critique overlooks the fundamental shift in del Toro’s interpretation. Unlike Shelley’s original, where Victor’s horror is born of unforeseen consequence, del Toro’s Victor is far more meticulous and deliberate with his choices. His creation is not as chaotic assemblage of a young boy unaware of his capabilities, but a calculated construction of a prodigal son determined to surpass his father’s medical legacy
In this light, the Creature’s polished exterior becomes a thematic necessity.
Production Design:
Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau transform each frame of Frankenstein into a series of living tableaux, each environment reflecting the narrative’s emotion and philosophical stakes.
The opening “Farthest North” sequence was astonishingly the parking lot of the Toronto Netflix studio and a 3D model of the explorer ship. This combination mimics Victor’s creation itself, propelling the cinematic worlds themselves as acts of construction.
The laboratory, housed within an abandoned water tower, is seeped in Gothic influence. Functioning as an artificial womb, a site of both obsessive experimentation and unnatural conception, this is perhaps the film’s most remarkable space.
If there’s one thing we can know for sure about Del Toro, it is that he loves symbolism, so of course, this permeates every corner of the production design. Circle motifs recur throughout, sometimes crowning characters like halos, other times enclosing them within the “circle of life”. It serves as an enduring reminder of the film’s preoccupation with creation and consequence.
Deverell’s visits to maritime museums lend authenticity to the film’s nautical sequences, whilst reinforcing its themes of discovery. Therefore, to call Frankenstein visually stunning feels almost reductive.
Its technical triumphs are anything but peripheral. Its excellence forms the film’s lifeblood. To overlook them within these categories would have been a dereliction of duty.
Author
