It was about taking her from zero to 100.” But that detail made him feel better, and it looked right.”Ī Star Is Born costume designer Erin Benach says of Gaga’s Ally and her style evolution in the film: “We were telling a story through costumes, carefully plotting each time we saw her to be one notch away from where she started: a blank canvas, wearing a simple black dress. “We shaved off half a centimeter or less. It needed to be tight, but not too tight, and I ended up making 20 or 30 of them.” Malek came to him shortly before filming started and said, “I’ve been looking at the Live Aid footage, and I think the neckline needs to be slightly lower,” recalls Day. “I sourced the studded belt and armband from the place he got them in London, but the white tank was the hardest. Day contacted Wrangler, which provided the original style of jeans the star wore, and Adidas, which reproduced the sneakers. The most challenging look to create was also the most simple, says Day of Mercury’s 1985 Live Aid jeans-and-tank-top performance look. But back then, to dress like that onstage and in public, it’s easy to forget how radical that was.” “The idea of fetish wear, now Dior and all the high-end fashion brands do it. “He had visited a club in New York called Mineshaft in the Meatpacking District … His eyes were opened,” says Day. (Day also is designing costumes for the Elton biopic Rocketman.) Re-creating one of Mercury’s harlequin jumpsuits that sold for more than 22,500 pounds (about $29,000) at auction in 2012 was “an incredible feat of engineering,” says Day, “since each diamond had to be cut and sewn together it required 30 to 40 fittings.”īy the 1980s, Mercury had come out as gay, and his look evolved into something more macho, with leather jackets, BDSM-inspired stud accessories, tight jeans and tank tops inspired by gay club culture and reminiscent of Tom of Finland’s artwork. Mercury had a love of theatrics (“If anything, we have more in common with Liza Minnelli than Led Zeppelin,” he said of Queen) and relished wearing spandex jumpsuits that allowed him to jump around and interact with his audience in a way Day believes made him more accessible than contemporaries David Bowie and Elton John. “I went to Zandra and got her to reproduce the exact top in lighter fabric.” He said he’d like to have the top, so she chopped off the skirt and gave it to him,” says Day. “Freddie went to her studio and saw her making a wedding dress. In the 1970s, Mercury was a frequent patron of pink-haired British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, who made the white pleated batwing top he wore during a 1974 performance.

“We cut so many, we nicknamed them the Freddie flare.” “That white jacket was found in Jimi Hendrix’s flat when he died, or at least that’s what I was told,” says Day of the vintage rental from Carlo Manzi in London - noting that, if true, it’s a fitting tribute because Mercury was heavily influenced by Hendrix.ĭay reproduced many of the performer’s most memorable looks from scratch, starting with multiple pairs of black velvet pants. He loved clothes.”ĭuring a scene when the band is first signed to a record label, Malek rocks a white leather jacket with winglike shoulder details (his bandmates mock it mercilessly). “Freddie went to art school and had a clothing stall at Kensington Market.

“Biba owner Barbara Hulanicki put Mary at the front of the store because she dressed the best,” says Day, who sourced vintage Biba for Malek and Boynton. Mercury was so keenly aware of his stage image, he famously said, “It’s not a concert you are seeing, it’s a fashion show.” In addition to doing research at the Queen archives in London, which contain a wealth of news clippings, costumes and more, Bohemian Rhapsody designer Julian Day tapped a who’s who of British fashion to help with the style icon’s gender-bending looks, starting with decadent (and long-shuttered) rock ‘n’ roll London boutique Biba, where Mercury’s female love interest Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) worked when they met.

Freddie mercury costume