Irish costume designer Consolata Boyle tells Deirdre McQuillan how she turned Helen Mirren into Elizabeth Windsor for a superb new film.
'The British are absolutely obsessed with royalty, so for me to come to this project with a bit of distance was an advantage," says Consolata Boyle, the Irish costume designer whose creations have helped to give The Queen, in which Helen Mirren stars as Queen Elizabeth II of England, such a true-to-life look. Working with Mirren, who gives a magisterial performance as the British monarch, was a pleasure, says Boyle. Creating costumes for a story about real people, however, was a minefield. "Everything had a code, and any jarring note would be a distraction from the main business. Therefore there had to be a sureness of touch. We were re-creating a very controlled world," she says.
From the opening scene, in which the queen, in ceremonial robes, poses for a portrait, to another where, in a plebeian mohair dressing gown, she clings to a hot water bottle, the clothes quietly help portray her personality. Research was important, and days were spent viewing film footage, examining everything from formal regalia to tweeds and tartans. Boyle, who has a degree in history and archaeology, has made rigorous research her trademark.
The film, which our critic Michael Dwyer awarded five stars in his review yesterday, deals with the events following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Paris, and her funeral, in London, in the heady days after Tony Blair's first general-election victory, in 1997. The action swings between Balmoral, the queen's summer estate in Scotland, and 10 Downing Street, contrasting their very different physical and emotional landscapes.
At first glance it seems straightforward to reproduce what has been so extensively chronicled visually, but Boyle's approach, like everything about the film, has been more subtle and intelligent. "There is a secret part of the queen's life that is not documented. I didn't want her to be a caricature or a figure of ridicule. I avoided the flowery dresses and tried a more neutral landscape, so that the story could take over."
The queen's London attire - simple yet formal 1950s shifts in the style of favoured royal designers such as Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies - is true to her essential aesthetic, although glasses, jewellery, hats and other accessories had to be absolutely accurate. "Those aspects have a wonderful familiarity, and it is obvious that she likes things that are comfortable," says Boyle. At Balmoral, where the queen buckets around in a Land Rover, a swirl of corgis in her wake, she is clearly more at ease and in her element. "She has elegance and grace when she's dressed for the country; anybody at home in their clothes is inherently graceful, because it is totally unselfconscious. She is a real countrywoman."
Second-hand Barbours and headscarves had to be found, as clothes had to look old, lived in and unpretentious. Colour was important, too. "I wanted to get the richness without making the look contrived. It contrasts with London, where the fabrics have a slight sheen and hardness."
Mixing imagination with fact, creating private and public spheres, had its own challenges. "You had to create a world without a false note. Cherie Blair is seen either at the end of a working day, tailored from the courts, or in scenes where we were matching existing footage." The energy of the Blairs both at home and in Downing Street is captured in offhand dress; Blair wears a Newcastle football jersey at home in the kitchen and fiddles with his tie as he prepares to meet the queen for the first time. "You get the feeling of the lack of interest in their clothes, because there is so much work to be done."
Boyle is full of praise for Mirren and Stephen Frears, the film's director, both of whom she says can be subtle and startlingly revealing at the same time, creating a sense of ambiguity. As for the royal family, which she considers "intriguing and bizarre", she feels she knows the queen better now. "Clothes have a language all of their own, and therefore you build up a coherent picture that makes sense as much as possible, but even after intense observation she still remains mysterious. There is still that elusive quality."
The Queen is in cinemas now.