Along with decorating, baking cookies, and endless shopping, diving into the latest Hallmark Christmas movies is an essential part of the holiday season for many of us. While the fun and heartwarming storylines may draw us in, the cozy costumes of these characters make us curl up and keep watching. This past season, the cozy costumes of A Merry Scottish Christmas and A Biltmore Christmas were brought to us by Keith Nielsen, known professionally as Keith Costumes, who took some time to tell us about the costumes he created for these Christmas spectaculars.
Elizabeth Joy Glass: First, let’s talk about your work as the personal designer on A Merry Scottish Christmas for Lacey Chabert, who played Dr. Lindsay Morgan, and Scott Wolf, who played Brad Morgan – two characters who live fast-paced career-oriented lives in America. How did you represent this in their costumes at the beginning?
Keith Costumes: I was so honored to be brought on specifically for the two of them. It’s such a gift to focus your creative energy on only a few characters for a change. Scott and Lacey both had interesting color arcs that were established right off the bat. Hallmark films are typically around 90 minutes, so the first looks are key to conveying where a character is in the story when the audience meets them.
In the beginning, especially for Lacey, the color choices were darker with color-blocked styling. Her character has little interest in being in Scotland, so her wardrobe reflects that. As we progress with her character, we introduce pattern and texture to show a bit more expressiveness and comfort.
Brad has color throughout. Scott and I talked about his styling throughout, and when we first meet Brad, he’s more of a family man, married, and an accountant. Early on, there is also a mix-up of suitcases, and he has an ugly Christmas sweater in it, demonstrating he’s a bit more festive than Lindsey.
EG: The longer they stay in Scotland, the more their costumes change to reflect their environment. How did you create this transition while keeping the core of their American background?
KC: Thank you for noticing. That was definitely intentional, and I wanted to arrive in Ireland, (some was filmed in Ireland as well as Scotland) a few days before shooting to be able to source some things locally to have that element. I also specifically sought out brands and designers that had origins in that region. Scott wears several coats by Ted Baker, which I liked as a brand for him being an accountant, but I mixed it with a JCrew chino to show the union of the styles since, come the end of the movie, he is a dual citizen.
Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Steffan Hill
As Lacey progresses, I introduce not only pattern and texture but also brands with
relationships to the area. She wears two dresses by Alexander McQueen, who had Scottish roots, and used elements of those roots in his designs. The coat Lacey wears at the end is by Burberry and reminds me of a countryside walking coat. It was placed as the final look as I wanted something visual to show her newfound connection to the location and spaces she is within.
EG: One wonderful scene is the ball at the film’s end with Brad in a traditional Scottish kilt, and Lindsay wearing a beautiful tartan-inspired gown. What kind of work went into these looks?
KC: This was fun, a tight time frame for builds, but fun. I don’t often get to build in films with tight deadlines, so I jump at the opportunity when I can. Tartans are very important to the clans of Scotland. Due to time, we had a fictional village named Glencrave, but we looked to the village of Glencoe for inspiration due to the similar name. We settled on the Macdonald of Glencoe Tartan Circa 1740. It also conveniently has red and green elements but is more of a jewel tone for an elevated evening look.
Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media
When building garments in a tight time frame, it’s always helpful to have some kind of a base to utilize as a pattern. For Lacey’s gown, I found a late 2000s prom dress with the curved neckline I was looking for. I flew to LA to fit Lacey and draped a new skirt on this sourced dress. Luckily, Lacey has been dressed by Bob Mackie, so I knew she was used to being fit with a muslin. We decided on a shoe for height, and then I got to work on the drape. My vision was to look like she had been spun in a pot of tartan fabric.
Also, what I think is cool about these two looks is the past meeting the present – Scotts tartan is traditionally woven, and Lacey’s Tartan is digitally printed. Same pattern but different processes.
Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Steffan Hill
Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Steffan Hill
Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media/Photographer: Steffan Hill
EG: Moving on to A Biltmore Christmas… it looks like this was a rather large undertaking! What kind of research and preparations did you need to do?
KC: I always say as costume designers we have bits of all eras in our minds, especially all the defining characteristics of each decade within the 20th century. I’ve done the 40s previously in theatre with An American in Paris, so I had some familiarity with the era.
My research process includes several different methods. One of them is absorbing elements of the era from different senses, visually through period films, vintage advertisements, and patterns. Audibly, through the music of the era, the Andrews Sisters were a great source of inspiration for Biltmore. I also enjoy looking at pieces in collections that may no longer have a life in them for wear but are now strictly for visual enjoyment and reference.
Preparation was about sourcing; we went to a variety of places for both creative exploration and availability of the era. The farther you go back, the harder it can be to source. We also needed a wide array of sizes as casting was still rolling in, and we did not start background fittings until the week before.
One thing I personally like to do with my men’s shirts is to buy recreations. For Biltmore, that was a spear collar button up, the freshness of the white helps elevate the vibrancy of the vintage pieces it’s next to. It’s important to me to look like we are really there presently, not an interpretation of the period with faded garments.
EG: Lucy goes through quite a journey traveling from the modern-day back to the 1940’s. How did you develop the character’s personal style in each decade?
KC: The modern style of Lucy was envisioned by Bethany Joy Lenz to reflect the character’s mental state of being an out-of-work writer; taking those thoughts, I crafted a closet of neutrals and simplistic lines to convey the character’s current state. We also had a pivotal look that needed to work in both modern-day and 1947- we discussed what that would be, and we settled on something in the middle. There was a line, “What on earth are you wearing?” but we didn’t want it to be so obvious to turn everyone’s head.
For the 1940s garments, it’s interesting that in the script, the first time she travels back, she borrows some pieces from the costume storage room. We kept that theme when she unintentionally gets stuck in the past and inferred that her next look was also borrowed. She only had 4 looks for the 1940s; the other two were the “Candy Cane Girl” dress, which would have been designed by the designer of His Merry Wife, and the finale ballgown, which is scripted as being borrowed from Ava Hayward. Those two looks had interesting backstories to draw inspiration from.
EG: Jack Huston has a very glamorous look, what was your inspiration for his costumes?
KC: Jack has two looks; he has his hero look of Jack playing Charlie, and Jack’s looks as Jack. Kristoffer has great shoulders and height, so I knew I wanted the iconic strong-shouldered 1940s double-breasted suit from the get-go. Then for his Jack look, I knew I wanted a middle blue with a chalk stripe, and it stuck through to the final result. Sometimes, you just know. Jack is very aspirational as a person (not playing a character). He’s hungry for what’s ahead in Hollywood. He’s not quite there yet but wants to be, so he dresses accordingly.
EG: Another glamorous character at the Biltmore is Ava Hayward, what was your inspiration for her character?
KC: Our actress Annabelle Borke has a similarity to Veronica Lake, who was a great touch point as well as Katherine Hepburn for her character that she was playing in His Merry Wife. This was a fitting process that happens very rarely. I saw the character so clearly on the rack and actually only did one fitting with one alternate dress. And everyone was 100% on board with my gut-instinct designs.
(Left) Annabelle Borke Photo Credit: 2023 Hallmark Media
My favorite would have to be the train station look. It’s a great example of how we work, even though none of it was made. The coat came from a rental house. The skirt suit was bought; I sourced the hat due to its coloring and fur accents that tied in both the suit and the coat.
The styling on here was also a gut instinct in our fitting. I put it with a cognac glove and a green bag. I often prefer a monochromatic glove to whatever the jacket is; I debated switching it. But there was something about it. I kept thinking about the original Sex and the City design by Patricia Field. There was something that just worked, so why change it?
EG: An impressive aspect of A Biltmore Christmas is the amount of extras in the film. What are the challenges that come with costuming so many extras in period clothing?
KC: Yes! My team deserves a massive round of applause for the background and the attention to detail each and every one of them received.
The biggest challenge is ensuring you have all the right sizes for whoever walks through the door; we’ve already rented/bought the costumes by the time we walk into background fittings. So you need to be prepared with various sizes and cuts for every piece: shirts, pants, shoes, hats, etc. So it’s a balancing game, as you don’t want to go overboard and spend money on pieces that will not be used.
It’s also a sizable organizational undertaking; with an organized stock, you can work faster, which means you can do more fittings in a shorter time frame, making the team available for other tasks. Fortunately for this film, we were 90% on Biltmore property, so we were able to spread out and set up shop. Normally, we are always locking down the truck and can’t visually lay out every single piece. So, what may seem like a small luxury made a big difference.
Specifically on Biltmore, many locals were background, so this was a new process for them mixed with their personal jobs/schedules. So, although we were filming splits, some of my team had to work altered hours to accommodate fitting times. Another challenge is location. We were filming on location in Asheville, NC, so there were limited resources for authentic vintage. We sourced out of LA for specific items such as military uniforms.
Background sometimes gets the short end of the stick, but in my work, I like to give them as much attention as possible to help elevate the overall as well as create the same level of quality when they are standing next to principals.
