Screenshots via Blair James on TikTok / Photo Illustration by Caroline ColvinCredit: Blair James /Caroline Colvin

The red Zebra print tank top. The oversized denim jacket. The boots. The micro shorts. The slouchy bag. The funky, ’90s sweaters. And of course, the Cassell’s music shop uniforms. So many costumes from Obsession, directed by Curry Barker, live rent-free in our heads. For some of us, we’ve already shopped the real pieces from Obsession or are bookmarking dupes of the red zebra-print tank top. Obsession-inspired moodboards abound, and horror-obsessed hot girls have already declared that they’re doing Nikki and Bear as their couples’ Halloween costume.

But who is the architect behind these iconic looks? Meet Blair James, the costume designer for Obsession, whose clotheshorse career actually started with celebrity styling. For Curry Barker’s film, she brought this ethos to the set by including actors like Inde Navarette in her character’s costume design process. “I can know so much about the character, but only the person playing that character will know exactly how they’re planning on doing it — how they feel. I really love involving the actors in that process, because if I can help them feel more like that character, then that’s a win,” she said.

Beyond the jewelry, Sarah’s costumes also have a wealth of thoughtful little details. James was really drawn to the idea of Sarah as an eclectic and artsy character, mixing in both hard and soft elements — and capturing the joie de vivre of exploring fashion for the first time. Barker had also written in the script that Sarah wears a purple flower dress, so James leaned into the contrast between a red Nikki and a purple Sarah. (James has also mentioned Patti Bellantoni’s color theory book If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die.)

James talks about the costumes for the boys with equal enthusiasm, too — think Ian’s outfits, born out of James wanting to lean into Cooper Tomlinson’s effusive personality. When she started designing Bear’s (Michael Johnston) outfits, she thought long and hard about who she knows that has same personality and why they choose the clothes they do. “A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, I just threw this on.’ But there’s actually so much meaning behind everything you wear,” James said.

Stills of Inde Navarette in Obsession; Navarette in costume Nikki via Blair James on TikTok. Photo illustration by Caroline Colvin.

Even little details, like Bear’s white tee being visible under his sweater, were top of mind for James. She spoke about Michael Johnston’s look of a striped sweater and PJ pants, saying, “I have a very deep love-hate relationship with it, which is why I like it.” Historically, James always wanted to have her styling work “look good,” calling Bear’s grungy look a turning point in her creative journey to put together outfits that look terrible but serve the story well. Regarding Bear, she described a kind of anti-glimmer.

For example, Johnston wasn’t accustomed to wearing baggy clothes. “In our fitting, he was like, ‘This kind of makes me uncomfortable.’ So I had to check in: ‘Does that make you feel more like Bear? Or do you feel like it’s like you as an actor being uncomfortable?’” James asked, parsing out that difference. “For him, it actually worked out, in that it helped him get more into character… You always want to be able to check in and kind of see: Is this like a real discomfort within you or is it a good discomfort?” 

Along with giving interviews, James shares all the gory details of designing the costumes from Obsession on her TikTok account, @blair00111 — mainly because she would read scripts and not know how to tackle certain elements of the scene, like a pee gag. She turned to cosplay content online. “Cosplayers will tell you everything you need to know about wear and tear — how to make all this crazy stuff. They’ll like teach you so many tips and tricks.”

When Barker’s film was finally being released into the world, James knew she wanted to make videos so that people her age, or those without experience in costume design, could learn about how to handle challenges in the field. For example, when discussing one of Ian’s outfits on TikTok, James talks about putting bronzer on a white hat to lessen the prop’s exposure on screen.

“I felt like there was a hole for information like that,” she explained, saying that she put out her videos for educational purposes but “also feel like they could do it, too.” She described the influx of people who have messaged her saying they’re looking into costume design as a career because of her videos. “I never understood how I was going to get into it,” she said of costume design. “I’m happy to see that it’s feeling more attainable to people.”

Accessibility seems to be an overarching theme: James wants costume design to feel like a career within reach for clothes-obsessed creatives, and, through their costumes, Nikki and Bear and Ian and Sarah feel like people you could really know. “I didn’t want to make it look like a horror movie,” James said, adding that she watched a lot of 2000s horror movies to get in the right headspace to design the costumes from Obsession.

“The movie that I always felt the most connected to was Jennifer’s Body and that was really because the wardrobe didn’t feel like it was going to get blood on it,” James said. “It felt like people in real life experiencing real, scary things.” She wanted her slice of Obsession to feel just as true to life. Not only did she feel like this approach would match Barker’s filmmaking, but it would add to the terror of the story. “Because you feel kind of like a fly on the wall to this world, versus, ‘Oh, these are characters in costumes.’ I never wanted anyone to be taken out of the movie,” she said. “I wanted them to feel constantly involved in it.”

You can check out Curry Barker’s Obsession on Peacock on July 17, and you can check out James’ Pre-Wish Nikki moodboard here.

Tags: Blair James Inde Navarette Obsession

Categorized:Exclusive Interviews