The Real-Life Couturiers Who Inspired Phantom Thread

Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread is a fascinating contest of wills hidden in the tired yet Hollywood-beloved tale of a young muse inspiring a genius man. The film's gorgeous '50s visuals reflect the fussiness and perfection of Reynolds Woodcock, the famous designer everyone's world centers around. Played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Woodcock is elegant, finicky, demanding, and selfish, living in a world of women but never really acknowledging them, until his latest muse Alma proves more than a match for his attitude. Anderson is known for inventing rich, believable characters, and Day-Lewis does intensive research for every character he plays. But is Phantom Thread's Reynolds Woodcock based on a real person, or is he a creation invented solely for the film?

It turns out the inspiration for Woodcock came from some surprising sources. Phantom Thread is centered around a '50s fashion house, so of course Woodcock's character was partly inspired by designers of the time. In an interview with The Seattle Times, costume designer Mark Bridges said that the House Of Woodcock's look was inspired by midcentury titans of fashion like Charles James, America's First Couturier, Christian Dior's wildly influential reaction to wartime rationing, the New Look, and most of all, Cristóbal Balenciaga, who Dior himself referred to as "the master of us all."

What fascinated Anderson about Balenciaga wasn't so much his fashion, but his life. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker said, "I generally didn’t have that much knowledge or interest in the fashion world until I started finding out a little bit about a guy named Cristóbal Balenciaga." Balenciaga's focus on art over publicity (according to a Telegraph article, he only gave one interview in his life and was so reclusive many people thought he didn't actually exist), and appreciation for clients who understood his artistry, are reflected in Woodcock. In one scene, he violently takes a dress back from a woman who behaves boorishly while wearing it.

Day-Lewis also took inspiration directly from the designer. In an interview with W magazine, the actor said he needed to sew a piece of couture from scratch to understand Woodcock's character. The designer he chose to replicate? Balenciaga. Using his wife Rebecca Miller as a (very patient) fit model, Day-Lewis recreated a Balenciaga sheath dress inspired by a school uniform in flannel gray. The work gave him a deeper appreciation for Balenciaga's genius. In the W interview, the actor said, "There is nothing more beautiful in all the arts than something that appears simple. And if you try to do any goddamn thing in your life, you know how impossible it is to achieve that effortless simplicity.”

Thanks to Bustle