“The Substance” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Best Screenplay for director Coralie Fargeat. It’s since become MUBI’s highest-grossing release, and it won its star, Demi Moore, a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy. We recently spoke with the film’s costume designer Emmanuelle Youchnovski about her work on the film, including the search for that iconic yellow coat, the influences for Elisabeth and Sue’s TV shows, and her surprising reference for Sue’s New Year’s Eve show outfit. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now available to stream on MUBI and is up for your consideration for this year’s Academy Awards in all eligible categories. Thank you, and enjoy!
Dan Bayer: Welcome everyone to the Next Best Picture podcast where we are talking with Emmanuelle Youchnovski, the costume designer for “The Substance”. Emmanuelle, thank you so much for joining us today.
Emmanuelle Youchnovski: Thank you. I’m very shy.
Aww. Well, it’s very interesting that you’re very shy because the costumes in this movie are not at all. I’m very excited to talk to you today because “The Substance” is such an incredible-looking film and the costumes are a very big part of that. I wanted to start by asking about the script for the film, because I’ve heard from some of the other people who have worked on it that Coralie’s screenplay was very descriptive with how she wanted the film to look and sound and feel. So I’m curious how many details about the costumes and how she wanted people to look was in the screenplay, if any.
EY: Yeah, it was very good description because when we read it, we have all the imagination in her head, you know, and… she describes the yellow coat, she describes the dragon on the bathrobe, she describes a lot of things.
So she had an idea and it was interesting for me because when I did the first rendezvous, um, the first meeting with Coralie, I knew she saw a lot of people for the costumes. So, I did an interview with her and I read the script. And I did a Pinterest, you know, with a lot of pictures. And when we did the interview, I showed her my Pinterest, and I think she took me, because all the pictures on this Pinterest, it’s the thing that she thought when she wrote.
It was very interesting to work like that because Coralie, she is very precise in what she wants, and you can read it in the script. After, we searched a lot of things together, but when you read – I don’t know if you know Émile Zola – when you have a lot of description in the book, you can imagine all the things in your head, and the script of Coralie, it was that.
Yeah, it’s very cool to hear that. I’m curious because, you work more in French cinema, and we are used to, you know, the Hollywood side of things. Is that typical for a lot of the screenplays that you get for films that you design for, or was it more descriptive than the others?
EY: Oh no, it was unique. Oh yeah, yeah, it was not, like, French at all. It’s like… Coralie, I think she’s sort of alien, you know, she has an incredible [point of] view. She knows a lot of things in cinema because in this movie she also has a lot of references, but it works in this movie because she… goes beyond the references. So no, it’s not French at all.
That’s really, really great to hear. I’m curious, what was your reaction to the story of the screenplay when you read it?
EY: I said, “YAY!” Because it was like, for a woman, it was huge, you know, because it’s also a body horror movie, but the way I think she can tell [the story]… she’s very important, she’s like, feminist. She has the industry of cinema, how it treats women and how difficult it is to have years and years and years for women. So for us, I’m 40, and for us, it was very good to read that. And not like realistic points, you know, it’s like with a lot of imagination with the blood, with the explosion at the end, with fight, it was very cool to read that. Yeah. I said, “Yeah! It’s crazy!” And for me, it was also the first body horror movie, and I really love cinema like that. So yeah, it was very cool.
Yeah, I can imagine. So I wanted to ask about some of the specific costumes in the film, the first one being at the very beginning with Elizabeth’s workout show, which feels – you know, my mother had the Jane Fonda workout tapes when I was young. Was that the specific inspiration that Coralie had put in the screenplay, or was that something you came up with together?
EY: You saw Coralie’s “Revenge” movie? So Coralie, I think she really likes the ‘80s and when we read the script, the first thing I saw, it was Jane Fonda. So I showed Coralie a lot of things of Jane Fonda, because the most difficult thing for us was to have the same show with different points of view: Elisabeth’s view and Sue’s view, the new one, you know. In 2024, we don’t do an aerobics show, nobody does that, okay? So it was very important for us to find what we can do. So if we do ‘80s things for Elisabeth, it’s more easy for us to do a new one for Sue, like Dua Lipa, or Beyoncé, or whatever.
So, yeah, we thought about Jane Fonda, and the color was very important – the matte blue bodysuit. Because for me, I wanted Elisabeth to wear primary colors. All the wardrobe of Elisabeth, it’s primary colors – yellow, blue, red – and for Sue, she has a complementary color of the primary color. It was very important to me, that it’s a response to each other, you know?
Yeah. And so, like you said we don’t have aerobics shows in 2024, so when you were looking at ideas for Sue’s workout show, where did you take inspiration from for that?
EY: I took… you know the video clip of Beyonce’s “Blow,” where she had the colors, you remember this one? And I also took a lot of inspiration from Dua Lipa because she wears a lot of bodysuits, but the bodysuit, it’s metallic, it’s fuchsia, it’s neon. I took all the things of our pop culture, not ‘80s culture.
That makes sense. And then, so, you have these not so much aerobics reference points, but you have the pop culture things for her show. And then for-
EY: Also, you know, the shape of the bodysuit.
Oh, yeah. The cut-out.
EY: Yeah, more skin, more Dua Lipa.
Yeah, absolutely. But, then you have the look for the New Year’s Eve show that feels very Cinderella inspired. Very blue and very floaty
EY: Yeah, and for us, it was very important. It’s like a princess, a Disney princess, and we destroyed this Disney princess, you know? And also for me, I have a reference. It can seem weird, but maybe you’re going to understand. I have the reference of “Queen Margot.”
Oh! Yes, the Isabelle Adjani movie.
EY: Yeah. You know why? Because in “Queen Margot,” she has a beautiful white princess dress, and she has all the blood. And it was a good reference for me because I want the viewer to remember it. Because everyone, when we speak about “Queen Margot,” every person thinks about the white dress with the blood. We didn’t want to do white because we wanted it to be like Cinderella and light blue, but we want the blood to mark on the light blue, you know? It’s for that.
And also, for me, it’s like also this image of the little girl. “Oh, I want to do Cinderella,” blah, blah, blah. And Sue, she wouldn’t take the gown and she wouldn’t do like a princess, you know, because she’s just born [as] Sue.
I’m curious, did you have to completely redesign that dress for when it would be worn by Monstro?
EY: Yeah. It’s weird because at the beginning we had a little maquette of Monstro, so I did a little dress on the Monstro. And I thought about the dress of Monstro before building the dress of Sue. Because I want – I need – to imagine, when it’s destroyed on Monstro, you know, before I did the Sue dress. But I think we did like five dresses, two on Sue and three for Monstro.
Oh yeah, yeah. With all the blood and everything, yeah. I know we’re. coming up close to the end of our time together, but I have to ask, you know, you said that Coralie had specifically mentioned the yellow coat that Elizabeth wears in the screenplay. That has sort of become the look that most people associate with this film now, everyone is talking about this yellow coat. Did you expect that?
EY: No, no, and also I don’t remember it. She said, “yeah, I think it’s yellow,” but we didn’t know which yellow because we bought a lot of coats, like 50 coats and none of them were fitting or anything. We don’t like it because we don’t like the color, we don’t like the collar, we don’t like the shape. So after I needed to find yellow fabrics. We didn’t find it in France, we didn’t find it in England, so I bought a fabric from Italy. And after, I drew the coat and we did the coat like armor. I wanted it to be oversized, and also with a sort of masculine wardrobe. Because for me, at the beginning, Elisabeth wears a suit, she wears a big tie… because she’s a woman with a lot of men and she wants to find a place, I wanted her closet like that, not too girly, you know.
Yeah, I can imagine. And you said you had looked at a lot of coats. How many, for the film overall, of these looks were things that you designed specifically for this versus pieces that you found elsewhere?
EY: I made all Elisabeth’s clothes, yeah. For Sue, I did the bodysuit, I did the catwoman [outfit], I did the dragon bathrobe, I think it was like 5,000 hours of embroidery. We did the Monstro dress. I did the little jacket of Sue also, I did the skirt, I… I think I did everything. We didn’t do Harvey, I just did two suits, but the other is Dolce & Gabbana, I think. And for Sue, I just bought a lot of t-shirts with logos on them, but everything else, we made it. Yeah. We designed a lot, almost everything.
Almost everything! It’s incredible and everything looks amazing, and it’s so wonderful to talk about it.
EY: Can I just – I just thought about something very important about the costumes.
Yeah?
EY: Because, you know in the movie, she is born [out of] the spine, you know?
Yeah.
EY: It was very important for me to represent the spine across the costumes. So you can – the dragon is that, um, the zipper of the catwoman suit for Sue, also for the red dress. And also for, you know, when she hasn’t begun “The Substance” yet, Elisabeth, she’s at the bar-
Oh, yes, that beautiful black dress.
EY: Yeah, we made that too – and I wanted us to see the back because it’s before she does this thing. Because after she does “The Substance,” she has all the stitching and scars, so it’s very important for me to have that. And also the yellow coat, we did a couture stitch on the back, you know, and the S on the back, a lot of things on the back. It was very important for me because it’s the thing.
Yeah. I did notice that. And I, especially love that bedazzled dragon. It just catches the eye so beautifully. That’s all the time we have. Emmanuelle, thank you so much.
EY: Thank you, thank you so much.
“The Substance” is back in theaters on January 17th and is available to stream on MUBI
You can follow Dan and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars and Film on X @dancindanonfilm