Step into the glittering, sinister, sensual world of Love Lies Bleeding as we unravel the captivating costume design. In an exclusive interview with Olga Mill, the brilliant costume designer behind the film’s costumes, we delve deep into the creative process that brought the vibrant characters and the pulsating energy of the late 1980s to life. From the raw power of bodybuilding to the delicate balance of femininity and strength, this interview uncovers the secrets behind the costumes that defined the characters, explored sexuality, and captured the essence of an era.
Spencer Williams: When you think of the eighties, you think of big shoulder pads and chunky jewelry, but Love Lies Bleeding felt more grounded in reality. What did your research process look like in capturing the essence of the late 1980s?
Olga Mill: I’m so glad to hear you say that. I think that was important to the director, Rose Glass, and me. One of our early conversations was, can we make an eighties movie in the gym without using a pair of leg warmers? I love that aesthetic, but I really appreciated that Rose wanted to do something different. The film takes so many crazy leaps that we wanted the characters to feel really grounded. So, let’s not elevate them to full 80s glam. There’s nothing Dynasty or Jane Fonda about it. A lot of it was also the color scheme. Let’s not go with neon. Everything is a little sun-drenched, sun-washed, and dusty.
In terms of research, I ordered a bunch of bodybuilding gym magazines on eBay and looked at those. But I also wanted to look at candid photos, which I found on Flickr, like somebody who has uploaded all their family photos.
There’s a really good documentary called Pumping Iron II: The Women. It was really interesting in terms of the bodybuilding community. The documentary dives into a lot of questions about gender and women’s strength. I watched it over and over.
Spencer Williams: You were able to get to know these characters without falling too much into the theatrics of it. So you filmed in New Mexico, and a lot of this felt like it had a lot of vintage pieces involved. Was that true? And if so, was it easy to find all these vintage pieces for Love Lies Bleeding?
Olga Mill: Yes, it was in New Mexico, and we had a lot of vintage pieces, but it was certainly not easy. A big challenge was that if it was just about finding amazing eighties vintage pieces, cool because New Mexico does have a really good scene. But because we needed multiples due to all the action, it added an extra layer of complexity.
For example, Lou’s jacket was originally a vintage piece, and then we remade it and tweaked it a bit so that we had multiples. Our assistant costume designer, Bailey Gardner, did an amazing job of hunting and gathering. Sometimes you just get lucky. Lou’s sneakers, for example, were from a dead stock vintage dealer we found online who happened to have multiples in the stunt sizes and a few for Kristen. That’s just a costume miracle. Finding an actual ’80s shoe that we could have multiples of was so cool.
We also sourced from a place called Santa Fe Vintage, which was great. A lot of Lou’s shirts, jewelry, and other items came from them. The multiples, the vintage, and the New Mexico of it all were definitely more of a challenge, but we had a really good team and were really lucky. It was a great combination.
Spencer Williams: Wow, that really worked out. The costumes, in general, felt like color played a big role, especially in conveying Lou versus Jackie and creating a low-key, colorful world, which made it that much more sinister. How did color play a role in your process?
Olga Mill: I did these color collages early on, where I pulled photos of different things. It could be a photograph of a person in a T-shirt, and I’ll clip the fabrics from the T-shirt in the photos. There’s a certain 80s aesthetic that’s a pastel palette mixed with primaries. So, it was pastels, primaries, denim—again, not going for the super graphic neon, black contrasting look.
In terms of her character, we always thought of Jackie as someone who’s hitchhiking and needing to gain favors from men to survive. There’s more of a traditionally sexy femme thing going on with her. It was fun to pair a really muscular body with a very feminine aesthetic. Her colors dip more into a traditionally 80s feminine palette, while Lou’s colors are a bit more washed-out primaries.
Spencer Williams: Let’s dive into each of these characters in terms of their costumes. The story of Love Lies Bleeding is mostly told from Lou’s point of view. In terms of Lou, she’s a bit more guarded and a hard worker—someone who isn’t easy to approach for a conversation. How does that come through in her costume compared to everyone else?
Olga Mill: We thought about Lou in a very practical way, right? Part of it was that she was a queer character in this small town. I loved that in the script, that’s not the issue. She’s just trying to get by, but she lives in this town. She doesn’t really leave, so what are her influences? What music is she listening to? She’s reading Macho Sluts, for instance. I looked at photographs of people in super small towns in the eighties and photos of the lesbian scene in more urban places like San Francisco or New York. Lou’s not hanging out in those places, but there’s something slightly aspirational about it.
I imagine her sentimental about clothing, having a small closet with pieces that are super worn in and that she’ll wear until they completely wear out. Her jacket and jeans have a bit of an exoskeleton, armory vibe in the beginning, becoming more exposed towards the end. That was the analytical throughline.
But so much of it is about the fitting process. Rose, Kristen, and I could have an intellectual idea of it, but once you start fitting, there’s an element where you have to leave room for intuition. Sometimes, things just work, and you don’t know why, but they do. And that’s fine.
Spencer Williams: I love all that, especially the idea of her being aspirational in a sense—she could fit in these other places, but she just can’t get there because of everything going on and where she’s at. But Jackie, unlike Lou, is colorful, energetic, definitely aspirational, and she’s traveling. She’s more cultured in the sense that she’s hopping all over the place while hitchhiking. How would you say all of this plays into Jackie’s costumes?
Olga Mill: We thought about her practically, like she only has one duffel bag, so how much can fit in there? But at the same time, you have to suspend disbelief to tell the story. For Jackie, we were always mindful that she doesn’t have a lot of stuff. Her life isn’t easy. We meet her, having sex in a parking lot, and then doing pull-ups under a bridge. She has to present herself in a way that’s appealing to men in order to survive. That was a consideration, and she’s also training. We wanted her body to look amazing, which was not hard because Katy provided that. But it was a puzzle to solve—what clothes to put on a really feminine, muscular body to make it flattering and serve the story.
It took a few fittings to get things right, like figuring out the exact height of the shorts’ inseam versus the outseam to make her legs look killer.
Spencer Williams: Was Katy training throughout the film? Were those fittings constantly happening, I’m assuming?
Olga Mill: Totally. It was interesting looking back at our first preliminary fitting with Katy and Kristen in LA and then again when they got to New Mexico. We were all amazed at how much her body had changed in just a few weeks, including Katy. She continued to train throughout filming, so we made a point to check fittings in her trailer after she wrapped for the day because her body was constantly changing. We didn’t want the shorts to fit differently a few weeks down the line, so we were constantly tweaking them.
Spencer Williams: That’s certainly a unique challenge. I read that director Rose Glass actually had a playlist for each character. I love this idea. I’ve heard some people talk about music influencing the costumes, but this was a direct way for you to get the character’s sound and vibe. What was that like?
Olga Mill: It was so helpful. It was amazing. And I selfishly now want to ask that of every director. Rose and her partner, who also worked on the film, curated these playlists. There was one that was a general vibe playlist for the movie and then one for each character. It was so good. You could put it on during fittings, research, or even shopping. Sometimes, you get into a kind of role-play mentally, imagining yourself as Lou in a vintage store, and having that music on is so helpful.
Music is so indicative of who a person is. If you’re going on a date or meeting a friend, knowing what they’re listening to tells you so much about who they are. I also think about what character has on their wall—like a poster of a musician or celebrity they’re aesthetically aspiring to. Having a playlist answers so many of those questions. I loved it, and I’ve had other folks do it too. I love this trend.
Spencer Williams: This is one of the reasons why I love this film. Everything works together—the music, colors, costumes, sets, and cast. Everything feels cohesive, which makes this such a great film. A great part of it is these playlists. So, directors, if you’re reading, this is a great tool.
Olga Mill: Thank you for saying that. I feel like that’s always the goal, to have it all congeal. So that’s great to hear. Much of that credit goes to Rose, who was open to ideas but also super clear about what she wanted, which is the perfect combination for any collaborator.
Spencer Williams: One thing I love about costumes is the aging, dying, and breakdown process. In Love Lies Bleeding, our characters go through quite a bit of mess. There’s sweat, obviously, from being in a gym, and there’s lots of blood, dirt, smoke—everything. How did that play a role in your process?
Olga Mill: I have to give a shout-out to Jesse Trevino, our textile artist on the film. He preferred “textile artist” to “ager/dyer,” which I found interesting. Jesse was the best I’ve ever worked with. For me, on the assembly line of a costume, you shop it, fit it, tailor it, and then the aging and dying is the last step. It can really make or break the look.
Jesse was fantastic. Because the color palette was so specific, we did a lot of custom dying. I could give him a Pantone and say, “It’s this, but dialed down a little,” and he would nail it. We custom-dyed a lot of things, like Lou’s Crater Gym T-shirts. We printed them, but the red and turquoise were custom-dyed. Jackie’s “Burning Love” T-shirt was also custom-dyed.
Jesse was also great with the aging and blood effects. He had such a good hand. It can look heavy-handed sometimes, or you think it’s too much, but then on camera, it’s not enough. I have so much respect for that craft because it elevates things so much. Our on-set crew was also amazing in terms of keeping track of all the blood continuity. It was a trip, making those blood splatters look really amazing. When Daisy gets shot, the blood spatter on Lou works so well. That was Ashley Keel, who was on set with Kristen. It really takes a village to make somebody look like that.
Spencer Williams: That’s such a good point about that scene. I mean, I saw the blood go everywhere and thought, “Oh, this is such a mess. It’s going to be such a pain for everyone.”
Olga Mill: Such a mess. It’s not my strong suit. If I do a movie with a lot of blood, I need a strong on-set team and a strong ager/dyer to pull it off. I can only say, “Oh, it doesn’t look quite right,” but I can’t thread the needle on what it needs. A big part of why it looked so good was thanks to those guys.
Spencer Williams: You brought something up that I wanted to commend. The “Burning Love” shirt was such a cool moment. I noticed it when she ran up the hill, gearing up for action. I loved that shirt.
Olga Mill: That was such a process. Bailey, our ACD, and I were just reminiscing about it. A lot of ’80s stuff definitely influenced it with so many graphics. But then you run into clearance issues, so you have to make your own. Even Jackie’s striped shorts and her sports bra with the sporty logo—we made those, basically trying to brand things as much as possible. The “Burning Love” shirt came from some research we did. Rose and I had an ongoing email chain of goofy sayings that were puns on muscles and sex. There are some really funny rejects in there. It was a process of brainstorming these sayings, sending them to clearance, and seeing what we could use. “Burning Love” made the cut.
Spencer Williams: I also want to take a moment to talk about Lou Senior. He is such an interesting guy. The first time you see him, you’re like, “This is an interesting person,” and you definitely don’t trust him. He also loves a busy pattern. Take me behind Lou Senior’s character, played by the brilliant Ed Harris.
Olga Mill: Lou Senior was a really interesting nut to crack. His character evolved a lot as Rose and I talked about him. We didn’t want him to be an outwardly bad guy, like a villain all in black.
Spencer Williams: He’s also kind of classy too. He likes nice music and has a nice place, so he’s… a weird guy.
Olga Mill: Yeah, he’s very weird. His playlist was all acid jazz. For some reason, I kept imagining him as someone who has fun weekend pool barbecue parties that you kind of want to go to. Maybe he creates an atmosphere that’s a good time and really fun. He’s maybe on the grill, and it’s all fun until it’s not, really quickly. You know, those people who feel like a glass of water on the edge of the table. But there is something still redeeming or magnetic about him. Like, “Grandpa’s really fun, we like hanging out with him,” until you see behind the curtain.
We had these conceptual conversations about who this guy may be or what it’s like spending time with him. The most interesting characters aren’t the ones where you’re like, “She’s goth,” or “He’s this type.” It’s a little bit of a soup. He was a guy you want to have margaritas with by the grill, a bit of a status-seeker, and he likes nice things. He loves a pattern and isn’t a wallflower but quiet. The hair does so much of the heavy lifting. The hair and Ed really hold up all the weight. He was really fun. Something about him eating yogurt in that trailer was really bone-chilling for me. I’d imagine seeing him at the grocery store, inspiring curiosity. “Where is he going? Why is he buying Bloody Mary mix?”
Spencer Williams: That’s the entire film. You’re like, “I kind of feel like he might be a good guy. He’s just misunderstood.” And then you’re like, “Oh no, he is a bad guy.” But you still can’t help but feel like you’d definitely have a margarita with him.
Olga Mill: Exactly. He’s definitely a bad guy, but there’s something about him. He might be a good hang if you don’t get too close. Or maybe he’s not a good hang, but he can curate a good hang.
Spencer Williams: Oh yeah. Which is just as important. The last question I want to ask you: I loved the Vegas scene and seeing all these bodybuilders in one room, all these different colors and fabrics, textiles, and a lot of people, there were a lot of costumes in this room. What was it like working with all these bodybuilders and crowds?
Olga Mill: Really fun. I think that’s one of the best parts about being a costume designer – you kind of moonlight into all these different worlds. I always think, “I’m never going to do enough research in X amount of months to really wrap my mind around something the way somebody has spent their entire life in it.” So, I always find an ally in whatever the field is and trust them to be able to tell me if it’s right. Having them all there was so cool because you can be like, “Do you buy it or not?” We collaborated with Amy Ardizzone, founder of Suits by Amy, who had been making bodybuilder suits since the ’80s. We did Jackie’s in-house with our tailor, but we ordered a lot of the others from her.
Vegas was somewhere where we used neon because I wanted to save it for there. We collectively talked about how to sell Vegas really quickly. Even in the shot when Jackie gets out of the van and walks into the hotel, we have all this background, and I was like, “Let’s put two showgirl costumes smoking outside.” Anything to sell it. It was an opportunity where we could get a lot of bang for our buck if we really invested in the background.
Spencer Williams: It was selling pretty quickly.
Olga Mill: I was trying to sell it. I was just putting it off by the register. I was trying to sell Vegas very strongly. But yeah, that scene actually, when we shot it, there was an audience, I can’t remember, but definitely a hundred-plus background. There was a stage, real bodybuilders. Rose would play the song, they’d do their thing, and Katie would do her routine. It wasn’t pieced together. I just remember having this moment of, “This is so cool. I’m at a bodybuilding competition,” you know? And they’d let the song play for the whole time. I just remember looking around, and Bailey and I were like, “This is really cool.”
Spencer Williams: We did that.
Olga Mill: We did that. And now I’m literally at a bodybuilding competition in the ’80s on a Tuesday morning. This is cool.
Spencer Williams: It really speaks to the transformative power of costume design. It’s the ability to transform you into these incredible worlds you might not have ever learned about or experienced. After that, I was like, “I want to go to a bodybuilding competition.”
Olga Mill: Totally. Yes, a hundred percent.
Spencer Williams: Olga, I loved Love Lies Bleeding. It was such a great film, and I just want to know what this film meant to you. And what’s next for you? What do you want to do going forward?
Olga Mill: I think this film was really special on a collaborative level. Everybody that made it, I felt really intertwined with creatively and just as a person. That was really special. I think it was also really cool. I didn’t really realize this until we were deeper into it, but my family moved from Ukraine in 1990 to the States. My first impression of American culture aesthetically was the late ’80s. That’s what people were still wearing, what you see on TV. There were so many things that I remember looking at on sitcoms, thinking it was so cool, so aspirational, and really salivating for it as a kid. Being able to recreate that era was really cool. In terms of what’s next, I just want to make good movies with nice, smart, interesting people. Is that too much to ask?
Spencer Williams: No, I think that’s the perfect goal. We just want to do what we love and do it with cool people.
Olga Mill: Totally. And even though this movie was serious, I loved the horror and campiness of it. More of that, please.
Spencer Williams: Love Lies Bleeding costume designer, Olga Mill, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a treat, and I loved it. I’m excited to see what’s next.
Olga Mill: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to chat.
