With “Drop,” Gwen Jeffares Hourie makes scene-stealing look easy. You won’t spot a second of the Irish costume designer’s face in director Christopher Landon’s new psychological thriller, about a fancy first date that suddenly turns into a covert murder attempt. But if star Meghann Fahy‘s stunning red catsuit caught your eye, then that twinkle came directly from Jeffares Hourie and the costume department.
“How did I get into costuming? I don’t know,” the designer told IndieWire. “We all just fall into film. Isn’t that how it happens? We have this other weird life, and the film opens its door to you, and you drift in.”
Also known for “Abigail” and “I Kill Giants,” Jeffares Hourie made it into the movies after her and her mother’s fabric shop shut down several years ago. Located along the Irish coast in the town of Bray, the family business once stood just up the street from Ardmore Studios, Ireland’s oldest production house. Costume designers made up their clientele for years, and, running into a former patron one day, Jeffares Houriewas was casually convinced to become an artist.
Cutting her teeth as a trainee on the musical comedy “Sing Street,” Jeffares Hourie continued to work with the costume designer on that film, Tiziana Corvisieri, after that. She was the costume supervisor for Corvisieri on the rip-roaring “Cocaine Bear,” among other horror titles, and these days says, “I love blood. I love horror. I love all of that. I almost turn my nose up at anything that’s not a horror movie.”
“Drop” isn’t the scariest film out there, but its slow-burn suspense made the costume department even more vital. Set over a single evening, this miserable meet-cute sees widowed single mom Violet (Meghann Fahy) getting back out there with charming photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar). They’ve been talking online for months, and they want the night to go well. But when threatening messages start popping up on Violet’s phone, an unseen enemy, lurking nearby, pushes her to poison her date.
“What I loved about the script from the start is that she is the accidental hero, not the male lead,” Jeffares Hourie said. “And we all dress in our certain armored looks, whether we know we’re going into battle or not. When we have to go and hob-nob and schmooze and talk to people, we’re like, ‘Cool, I’m putting on my boss blazer today!’ Or ‘I’m wearing those sexy jeans that make my bottom look nice.’ Here, Violet did feel awesome and confident and ready for this big date, but then it all turns to shit.”
Not available to consumers (although it really should be), Violet’s show-stopping jumpsuit was custom-made by Jeffares Hourie and her team. The designer describes herself as having a “small obsession” with velvet (“A good-quality velvet just moves and does… stuff on camera,” she said), but full credit for making the “Drop” ensemble red goes to Fahy. It’s a color Jeffares Hourie says we don’t often see on screen — or in real life — precisely because it can be so striking.
“Meghann drew me to red, actually,” Jeffares Hourie said. “I think the script originally called it this ‘beautiful black garment.’ And I was like, ‘Black? No. Get out of here. I’m not putting black on screen for four hours.’ But she was the one who said we should try red, and that was brilliant.”
The actress and her costume designer exchanged notes for weeks before finally landing on the silhouette and shade. In the end, they picked burgundy to avoid Fahy “looking like Mrs. Claus,” Jeffares Hourie said, and to ensure she fit into the feel of the frame in “Drop.” Without any monsters to run from or supernatural forces to fight, Violet is stationary and in the same outfit for almost the entire film.
“You sort of just set her in the scene, but she also needs to be elevated out of it,” Jeffares Hourie explained. “With costumes, that loses you loads of colors. That loses you all those golds, all those wooden tones, and all those warm tones in the restaurant.” She continued, “We knew burgundy would look beautiful against her skin, against her hair, but we also knew it would sit in that world of [production designer Susie Cullen] and the specific palette of her set.”
It was critical to deliver an outfit with enough visual interest to keep audiences focused on Violet, but Jeffares Hourie also wanted to give Fahy something she’d love working in for eight weeks. Comfort was necessary (particularly an action-heavy finale scene, we won’t spoil here), and “Drop” nailed that. Per Jeffares Hourie, there were 24 versions of the jumpsuit in total, and “we even have one that we managed to fit [Christopher Landon] into on the very last day of the shoot.”
But the best costume designers do more than clothe actors — they stoke their creative process. For Jeffares Hourie, “Drop” was no exception. Despite a scene explicitly showing how Violet’s sister, Jen (Violette Beane), pressured Fahy’s wallflower protagonist into wearing a look that characters would typically never put on, Jeffares Hourie still gave a lot of thought to how that item wound up in that closet.
“‘Why did she own it? “We landed on the idea that this is that purchase that you make when it’s on sale somewhere, and you’ve seen it a million times, and you look at it, and you suddenly just go, ‘Right, fuck it,’” Jeffares Hourie said, “Just, ‘I’m blowing 300 quid on this, even if I know I am too scared to wear it, but one day, one day, I will have the confidence to wear it.’”
Asked about accessories, Jeffares Hourie said sticking with simple gold jewelry and black heels helped support her vision of that purchase. Confident and bold, the chic minimalism Violet ends up sporting in “Drop” communicates “love interest” as much as it does “femme fatale… rushed out the door.” Lacing scads of background characters with their own twisted clues, Jeffares Hourie reflected on the effortless joy she found in making Fahy stand out as a complex woman in a sea of red herrings.
“She wasn’t going to get completely covered in blood or vampire guts, and she wasn’t getting dragged through the bushes backwards. She didn’t get set on fire. No creatures ate her,” said Jeffares Houir. “We just needed super strong, super gorgeous, and lovely to look at. We spent 12 weeks making it, so I’m over the jumpsuit now, but it was really meant for the big screen.”
From Universal Pictures, “Drop” is now available on digital platforms and will later stream on Peacock.
