Betsey Heimann on Costuming Godless

costume design for Michelle Dockery

At a pivotal juncture during the Fathers & Sons episode of Godless (2017), the camera tracks into a pink ribbon tied on the back of young woman’s hair; a woman who is suffering from the onset symptoms of smallpox and unlikely to find recovery. Later in the episode we pan across dozens of freshly dug but unnamed graves each with it’s own crucifix. We don’t see the woman again, but on one of the crucifixes is tied a pink ribbon. Such is the power of even the slightest costume and accessory details in Godless, the narrative is informed by their very presence.

Costume designer for Godless was Betsy Heimann. Perhaps best known for costuming Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Almost Famous (2000), she is extremely well respected in the industry. Godless is some of Heimann’s most complete work yet. The western era in question, 1884 in Colorado, is well documented historically. This is a good and bad thing. Godless is not a docudrama; it is fiction. A classic Wild West revenge saga played out over vast plains and pocketed towns. Heimann needed to recreate the reality of the era while at the same time nodding toward genre signifiers that we as viewers expect to see.

costume design for Jeff Daniels as murderous preacher, Frank Griffin

The ‘hook’ of Godless is that La Belle, the main town featured in the show (and it really existed), is almost entirely populated by women. This is because a mining disaster claimed the lives of most of the men. Husbands, sweethearts, sons and fathers – all gone in an instant leaving the town’s women to take over their every role (two lawmen are about the only able bodied males in the town, and one of them is seemingly losing his sight while the other is barely out of his teens). What women wore during this era is certainly researchable, their home dresses, Sunday Best and suchlike, but what they would have worn to work in a more manual role, far less so. Women did undertake manual labour, though these jobs were typically fulfilled by men…unless of course these men became sick or absent.

Clothes on Film chatted to Betsy Heimann about costuming the world of Godless and some of the subtle character and period details she scattered across the landscape.

“I knew myself how I wanted Godless to look” explains Heimann. “What I needed to compile was a reference for my writer/director, Scott Frank. So I started with the mine and then the women. I located a reference for the Chrisman sisters and then I found some shots of women ranchers. On one picture I found this woman rancher wearing these four button pants and her blouse with the bandana tied and slung to the side, which became a reference for Mary Agnes’ top half, and the bottom half became my inspiration for Alice’s riding pants.“.

Read more here