How “MaXXXine” Reinvents 1980s Slasher-Film Fashion
Director Ti West’s breathtaking horror trilogy comes to its gory, glamorous conclusion in the new film MaXXXine. Emphasis on glamorous—this one is set in the grimy underbelly of 1980s Hollywood, where there is no shortage of over-the-top makeup, acid-washed denim, and teased hair.
We first fell in love with Maxine (Mia Goth) in 2022’s X, an homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre set in the 1970s, and then delved into the unhinged history that preceded her in the same year’s Pearl, set in 1918 Texas. Now, we get to follow along on her ultimate quest for superstardom—and the clothes themselves play a major role in this film, arguably more than they did in the previous two.
Bazaar caught up with costume designer Marie-An Ceo to learn more about bringing Maxine to life, portraying a different side of 1980s fashion, and how you manage a costume department with all that fake blood flying everywhere.
This is the third film in a trilogy, but the first of the trilogy you’ve designed costumes for. How does MaXXXine relate to X and Pearl?
Each film has its own look, which I believe is one of the reasons these movies have been very successful. Artistically, they each have their own feel. Ours has this very stylized 1980s genre that’s very particular to roadhouse and slasher movies. There’s this whole feeling of the 1980s, where the movies were suspenseful, and we really played to that. The production design, lighting, the costumes—everything really captured it.
Are there any Easter egg references to the previous two films?
This one is personal, but we had this “Oui” T-shirt. I had thrifted this T-shirt when I was a kid, and I used to wear it everywhere. And apparently one day, my father, [who] was very conservative, saw me on my 10-speed bike with that T-shirt on, and he nearly had a heart attack—Oui was a gentleman’s magazine from Paris in the ’70s and ’80s. And “Oui Oui Marie” is a song in X, so in a way, the “Oui” T-shirt we used in this film is a fun nod to X, and it was also my naughty T-shirt I shouldn’t have been wearing.
Also, Maxine’s jean outfit. Ti was very specific that he wanted something that hearkened back to her overalls [in X]. So we did that with this two-piece that looks like overalls. This ’80s version of overalls. This is our nod to that—but in acid-washed denim.
Acid-washed denim! The 1980s is such a rich time period visually.
I was alive in the 1980s, but I will say, there were a lot of styles happening at the same time: Punk was around, disco was still sort of happening, we were getting into the New Romantic style, men were wearing glam makeup in the clubs, there were so many different club worlds happening … and rather than go for this Valley girl take on ’80s [style], we really wanted to pull from the club scenes. We didn’t want it to be just “the big-shouldered ’80s,” but we do have a bit of that in there, too. Maxine is tough, but she’s more. She’s part Blondie, part Flashdance. She’s coming out of the ’70s, even though we’re in the mid-’80s.
Did you source a lot of vintage for this film, or did you build your own costumes, or both?
With Maxine’s character, we needed a lot of multiples with all the stunt doubles, but we pretty much made all of her things. We made her acid-wash jeans, we made most of her dresses; for the scene at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, we were inspired by 1930s glamour and Scarface. Ninety percent of what Maxine wore, we actually made.
I imagine vintage can be difficult for a film like this—all the stunts and all that fake blood.
In fact, something we did that will make most costume designers cringe is that we had some really bad multiples. We had some great original ’80s, like Michelle Monaghan in this great ’80s leather jacket and Sergio Valente jeans, so we did bad multiples when it came to the stunts. Because sometimes it’s really difficult to replicate vintage when it’s so good. As far as the background and the crowd scenes, those are pretty much all original pieces from the ’80s.
You’re no stranger to the slasher genre, having worked on franchises like Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. How did this project compare to other slashers you’ve worked on?
It’s very funny, because I don’t seek it out actively. I started doing these films with Michael Bay and got into it that way. I grew up in a small town in Florida where there was one movie theater, and I remember going to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I would cover my face through 90 percent of it—but there’s something about being in the movie theater with all the people shrieking that was rather thrilling to me. I don’t love watching people get killed, but I do love what those movies can do to an audience. I love the movies of that era so much. In this case, I’d say that Ti did such a good job with Pearl and X that I thought, This guy has something special. So when this job came up, I said, “I will kill it.”
Is it difficult to plan costumes when there will be so much blood?
With MaXXXine I became so fixated on the period pieces we found, and when we were filming, we were going up against a strike that was about to happen, so this was a much quicker prep than we would normally have. I lived dangerously! Usually you have a dozen of one thing that’s on there. With MaXXXine, we would have the original and then some really squinty multiples. Her leather pants from the ’80s were so beautiful, we couldn’t replace them—we tried to build others that had to go through stunts, but nothing fit as well as the original pants. We did put other pants on as a multiple, but it was one of those situations where we really fell in love with the originals. One thing that’s different about this movie is that we did it so old-school. We kept using some of the same bloody stuff [take after take] and just timed it out right. It was like an old-school movie from the ’80s—“Just wipe the blood off, it’s okay!”
Did your actors try and steal anything from set?
This time, interestingly enough, people were very polite and asked for their things! It happens a lot. One thing is this T-shirt that we put on Moses Sumney. People used to write on T-shirts a lot in the ’80s, and one of his options was this T-shirt he had written poetry on, and wore it inside out. I’m not sure what happened to Moses’s poetry T-shirt!
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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