Watchmen’s costumer designer takes us behind the masks and suits

Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen, an up-to-the-minute take on Alan Moore’s classic comic book, may be HBO’s biggest show of the season. The series is set in a timeline where history has been altered by the presence of real-life superheroes, and both police officers and vigilantes wear masks. Things get really complicated and really interesting really quick.

The costumes on Watchmen are specific and creative. The woman behind them is Meghan Kasperlik, who recently talked to SYFY WIRE about her process. Let’s start with the masked police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cover their faces with bright yellow cloth.

Kasperlik chose the color as a nod to the comic, which has a famously bright yellow logo.

Kasperlik intentionally made sure to use ordinary materials when crafting the costumes, pointing out that the characters themselves are the ones making their suits. It wouldn’t be believable for them to have advanced tech and expensive garments laying around for everyday use. “It just can’t look like some of the flashier stuff like Batman or Iron Man, so I had to make sure that the costumes are made of material obtainable to the vigilantes,” Kasperlik said. “It was about giving it a DIY spin without making it look like a Halloween costume.”

So characters like Angela Abar (Sister Night) and Wade Tillman (Looking Glass) made their costumes in their garages or whatever. Those costumes were actually originally designed by Sharen Davis, who worked on the pilot, with Kasperlik tweaking them when she came on board.

Mark Hill/HBO

Kasperlik and her team learned as production went on. For example, the first design for Angela’s hood presented problems during action scenes. “The hood was a bit of a challenge because we were doing a little bit more action with the character and the hood wasn’t keeping the shape we wanted,” Kasperlik explained. “So I put a layer of neoprene in between the lining and the base of the leather so it would hold its shape on camera.”

There was a similar issue with Looking Glass’ mask. Actor Tim Blake Nelson was given a hard mask for the pilot. But that came with its own challenges, so now the actor alternates between five different masks, each offering different levels of flexibility depending on what kind of scene is being shot. “In the pilot, they tried to make it a hard mask, and Tim Blake Nelson insisted on actually wearing a mask to get into character,” Kasperlik said. “But when I came on, we used a motion-tracking mask with spandex motion capture material so he can breathe through it.”

Colin Hutton/HBO

And on the subject of metallic costumes, the design for Ozymandias’ outfit required some creativity. Although the costume needed to look like it was made of metal, Jeremy Irons still needed to be able to move around in it. According to Kasperlik, she enlisted the help of the same team that designed Wonder Woman’s costume in the 2017 film to tackle Ozymandias’ look. “We knew it had to be as close to the graphic novel as possible,” she said. “The thing about the original Watchmen is that all the costumes are two-dimensional because of the way that they’re illustrated, so they don’t necessarily jump off the page.”

When you’re trying to get a costume to stand out, black and white photography can be an issue. For the show’s brilliant sixth episode, “This Extraordinary Being,” Kasperlik and company had to take that into account when designing the look for Hooded Justice. “We filmed in black and white, but they also wanted the option to go back to color, which is not really the way you do black-and-white films,” Kasperlik said. “So it was a bit tricky to make sure there was still some extra texture and that everything looked flat. But creating it in black and filming it that way gives a bit more depth and weight to the costume.”

Watchmen — photo: Mark Hill/HBO

But generally, the same principles applied to Hooded Justice’s costume as the rest, including the handmade feel of it. “We worked with the production designer and the prop department about the weight of the rope and what would be accessible in the ’30s and ’40s, the texture of the ropes, and also the cloth that he has placed over his head is not what ends up being his actual hood,” Kasperlik said. “So we had to figure out what fabric he would use to make his proper costume once he got home and decided to make his own costume at home.”

It’s clear that Kasperlik has put special care into ensuring that every component of Watchmen’s costumes is both believable and practical in the context of the story being told. To learn about more of the costumes she put together — including those of the Minute Men, Pirate Jenny, Red Scare, and even “Lube Man,” check out Kasperlik’s full interview with SYFY WIRE.

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