James Van Der Bexton, addicted to speed dating and unsure of his own identity, hides behind other three minute personalities. Sometimes he dresses to match but most times he’s just a soul. For Leonie Prendergast finding the appropriate look for James was the key to unlocking the rest of the characters.
“James was the first character I worked on,” she says. “I knew that once I had established him everything else would fall into place. James has to look a certain way at the beginning of the movie. He has to look good but his character has to make sense so that the audience can empathise with him and even be attracted to him. He comes from a wealthy background so even when he is depressed, I still wanted there to be a suggestion of where he came from in his clothes. I did that with textures and colours. So his costume or wardrobe is timeless. When he looks good it’s the same kind of clothes but the colours are just richer and warmer.”

Prendergast had previously worked with Hugh O’Conor on a short film. “We had a good relationship on that and he trusted my eye and my ideas so it went very smoothly. James is some ways two characters – pre and post Jennifer – but I didn’t want there to be too much of a jump between the two periods in his life because it wouldn’t make sense. Even when someone is depressed and not feeling good in themselves they still wear the clothes they feel comfortable in, almost like a comfort blanket. It can be an old jumper that their dad wore or an old corduroy jacket which is what James wears. It is kind of similar to what his dad wears except the latter is more flamboyant.”

The first time we see Susan King she is dressed in a standard nurse’s uniform: later she is transformed when she is in her street wardrobe. “She looks very relaxed but she wears bright colours,” says Prendergast. “She is a nurse but yet she wants to travel the world and that is reflected in what she wears. There is a touch of the bohemian about her. I went for a more European look for Susan: rich greens and pinks and purples. I had her in jeans most of the time because that is what most girls of her age would wear: jeans are the basis of her wardrobe.”

Jennifer is first seen as wraith: a disturbing vision dreamt up by James imagination. For Prendergast that allowed a certain amount of licence but Tony Herbert was insistent on one piece of her wardrobe. “That was the one costume that Tony was specific about,” she says. “He wanted her in a cloak. It’s a sort of Lord of the Rings idea or the girl from the Timotei ad: we’ve all seen the woman in the cloak before, so I just varied it slightly. I added sleeves and out a bow on the front and it worked very well. I worked with Flora before but I had to fit her on the day so it had to be quick.”

With the unusual clan that is the Van der Bexton family, Prendergast had lots of room for manoeuvre. “They have so much money that they don’t know what to do with it,” she says. “They were great fun to dress. Juliet is a Goth but I didn’t want to do the obvious, the stereotype – what’s the point. I wanted to do designer goth, a very individual look that wasn’t ripped tights, greasy hair and big black eye make-up. I think I was sort of inspired by Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice: aloof yet beautiful. Her background is that she is quite creative so that’s where the inspiration came from.”

“Essentially each character has a wardrobe: a look for each day and what fits for them for each day. On certain days you might wear something different depending on how you feel so I break it down to the actual day and to the socks they wear. I tend to bring that touch of realism to the character’s wardrobe, right down to the socks they wear.”

For the quick change speed dating sequences, Prendergast paid particular attention to detail. “That was great fun,” she says. “It must be very hard for an actor just to have a short scene to get your character across. But that’s where I can help. I went speed dating before we started shooting to see how people dressed. So the speed dating in the movie is exaggerated. We just took a scenario and made it the worse case possible: in reality it is not like that at all. So the clothes these characters wear are very loud and in your face.”

As is the wardrobe of the two detectives whose clothes are almost as aggressive as their interviewing techniques. “These are two characters who watch too much American television so they take their fashion sense – and everything else – from that,” he says. “Don’s character wears a shirt, jacket and jeans and McArdle takes his work very seriously – he has a new shirt every day which his mum irons for him. He is very passionate about what he does.”

She also got to have some fun with James: especially with his more flamboyant speed dating guises (fedora) or his attempts at impersonating a man of mystery (black outfit). “You can go comic but you can go too comic and the fear is that you lose your audience,” she says. “So even within that speed dating guises all his costumes had to make sense so that the audience wasn’t lost at any stage.”

Like the rest of the cast, James Van Der Bexton’s look articulates the slightly offbeat attitude of the screenplay. “It is contemporary film but with a quirky edge,” says Prendergast. “I put a bit of comedy into some of the clothes like James’s surveillance outfit. The brief was black polo neck, black trousers, black gloves and black hat. But I found this black hat with a bobble on it, like a ski hat, which made so much sense because hopefully it will make the audience go ‘ah god love him!’ because he has a bobble on his head.”

So for Prendergast the most interesting character to dress was James. “From an audience’s perspective they might not think it is the most flamboyant or best costume but I know that it makes sense for the character and it works,” she says. “You also have a costume with the wow! factor, like Juliet’s, which was great fun to do as well. But for me in getting the character right I was very happy to get James because after him all the rest of the characters made sense.”