Gwyneth Paltrow’s Fading Screen Starlet In ‘Marty Supreme’ Was Inspired By These Real Hollywood Icons
Fashion
Fashion
Costume designer Miyako Bellizzi breaks down how she crafted the wardrobe of the ‘50s movie star character who opts for haute couture from Madame Grès over Christian Dior.
For Josh Safdie’s gonzo epic, “Marty Supreme,” costume designer Miyako Bellizzi faced a bit of a quandary for Gwyneth Paltrow’s first scene as Kay Stone, a silver screen starlet-turned-Park Avenue doyenne. “It was a feat and only because Gwyneth is Gwyneth,” says Bellizzi. To set the scene: aspiring ping-pong champ and world-class hustler Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) summons his own mini-press gaggle in the Ritz Carlton in London, home of the 1952 World Table Tennis Championships. The 23-year-old’s spurious flexing immediately grinds to a halt, as ’30s movie star Kay, head-to-toe in gray elegance, enters the lobby. The male journalists fall silent and then make the reliably misogynistic comment, “She looks well for her age.” Marty is immediately taken with Kay’s steely glamour and palpable ennui—perfectly embodied by Paltrow.
“She's just such a cultural, but also fashion icon, in terms of the movies that she's been in, like ‘Royal Tenenbaums,’” says Bellizzi, immediately bringing a fur-clad Margot to mind. “If we were historically accurate to 1952, Kay would be in a mink coat. But I didn't want to redo that.” So, Bellizzi creatively pivoted, but remained period authentic and true to London winters by wrapping Kay in a long, caped dress-coat. “Maybe she took her fur coat off outside,” says Bellizzi. “But I wanted to give her a fab cape situation.”
For inspiration overall, Bellizzi looked to silver screen icons who once resided in New York City, such as circa-‘30s Marlene Dietrich and '50s-era Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly. “I'm a big fan of ’30s, ’40s, ’50s films,” says Bellizzi. Kay left the punishing Hollywood machine at the height of her career to marry a wealthy industrialist and settle for a privileged, but unfulfilling life on the sidelines. “I just think about the sadness in her life,” says Bellizzi. “I pulled from that just in terms of color palettes, too, starting with gray.”
After an audacious Marty convinces her to watch him play in the finals at Wembley, an intrigued Kay quietly enters the stadium in a wintry-chic, black-and-white tweed ensemble with her face framed with a veiled black pillbox hat and the structured white-winged collars of her dress coat.
Gwyneth Paltrow in "Marty Supreme." Photo: A24.
“It was important to give her the little mesh face covering, not that she's trying to be incognito, but what is she doing at Wembley? She's an old movie star. Maybe people recognize her,” says Bellizzi. “I knew that she'd be sitting in a sea of people in the dark, so I wanted to give her brightness with the white to bounce off her face so you could see her in the crowd.”
While referencing ’50s-era Dior for some of Kay’s wardrobe, Bellizi tried to avoid any obviously recognizable style signatures and dove into the society grand dame’s psyche, instead, to custom-design the black-and-white outfit. “She would wear something like a Madame Grès, just because Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, they were the young, cool, new designers of the ’50s,” says Bellizzi. “She can afford the world. It's just that she's just of a different stature, which is a little more classic.”
While Kay doesn’t wear fur for her introductory appearance, she (briefly) dons one for a very memorable scene, nonetheless. She shows up at Marty’s hotel room door in a chunky rabbit fur coat, which she quickly drops to unveil a white-lace merry widow corset—a pristine vintage piece that fitted Paltrow like a glove.
“The lingerie was very important to me,” says Bellizzi. “It was really important that all of her undergarments were also period accurate.” She determined that Marty’s 20-something childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) would wear a modern lace bra-and-briefs set, while Kay would stick to the corseted bodysuit popularized in the ’30s.
Kay crosses paths with Marty once again as she tries to revive her acting career on Broadway, while wearing lighter yellow, along the way. She celebrates her opening night in a stunning red strapless gown and black opera gloves. “That dress, it's her finale. It's the pinnacle. The highlight of her new life,” says Bellizzi, who again referenced the old world glamour of Marlene Dietrich. “She blossoms into red.”
Kay protects herself from the New York City winter chill with a sculptural cape-like wrap—much needed for a clandestine rendezvous with Marty under a Central Park arch. (Not a spoiler since paparazzi already captured the moment last year.) “I made this huge, almost blanket-like stole because I thought it would be cool to make it really oversized,” says Bellizzi, infusing some of her own innate style sensibility to the period piece. “It was like 20 degrees on the night that we shot, so you actually don't even see the dress! But I actually think it looks really chic like that too,” continues Bellizzi. “She’s wearing it like a coat outside—and it’s not a fur.”
