ON SET

On Set: W.E.

Oscar-nominated costume designer Arianne Phillips annotates images from Madonna’s new Wallis Simpson biopic.


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Stylist: Arianne Phillips
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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“Andrea Riseborough [as Wallis Simpson] is wearing a Schiaparelli ‘minute’ suit with Cartier pearls and medals. Cartier re-created the medals and pearls for us. Once the film comes out, Cartier will destroy all the copies it re-created for the production, so the originals will not be devalued.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“The man in the background with the red tray is Cartier security. Madonna and I had a ritual: We would place the jewelry on Andrea together. Some of the jewelry in the film belonged to Madonna. Madonna said to me from day one: ‘Use me in whatever way I can help you.'”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“This shot is from a hunting trip the duke and duchess took in the forties. She’s wearing a Schiaparelli hat (re-created by Stephen Jones) and Roger Vivier boots. Designers were a big part of Wallis’s story. She loved fashion and was famously quoted as saying, ‘You can never be too rich or too thin,’ and she definitely lived by those words!”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“Edward was a man of incredible style. He liked to bend and even break the rules; he was very punk rock about how he dressed. Edward was 5′ 6″, and our actor, James D’Arcy [shown practicing between takes], is 6′ 3″. In terms of pattern and texture, you have to be careful with a tall man. For this scene, with Dunhill’s help, we re-created the duke’s jacket and waistcoat, as well as the kilt.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“Mainbocher was an American designer Wallis favored. This shot is of her looking out her bedroom window at the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris. Since we only had black and white images of Wallis in this dress, I chose to make it in Duchess Blue, a color she made iconic.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“This scene is the first time Wallis meets Edward—at a party he was throwing. She is wearing a dress made by Vionnet, bracelets from Anna Hu, hair jewels from Stephen Jones, and Madonna’s personal necklace. He is wearing a navy tuxedo with tails—his signature.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“This scene is in the South of France, so I wanted a really striking day dress. This one was inspired by a lot of the photographs we had of her. It had this beautiful organza petticoat that just made it waft and float when she walked. We had more than 15 fittings because Andrea had so many costume changes. We were fitting clothes until the very end.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“Wallis wore clothes beautifully and she understood them. This look is part of a montage of a holiday with Edward before they were married. I worked a lot with a company in London called Cosprop, which has provided costumes for everything from Merchant Ivory productions to The King’s Speech. They were kind enough to let me dig through their stock.”

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Stylist: Arianne Phillips

“Wallis looks so glum because this is when she listens to Edward’s abdication on the radio while she’s lying low in the South of France. Everything is vintage—the handpainted kimono-style jacket, the linen trousers—though the black bracelet was custom made for us by Alexis Bittar. On her left hand is her engagement ring—a large square-cut emerald, re-created by Cartier.”