LA Times Interviews "Deathly Hallows" Costume Designer About the Wedding Scene

DH Film

Jany Temime, costume designer for "Deathly Hallows" (as well as "PoA," "GoF," "OotP," and "HBP") has spoken to the LA Times about the costumes in the wedding scene. Temime comments on the mood of that scene, and how it's the "last joyous moment in the franchise with all the battles, destruction and loss that follow":

“The film is so dark and the beginning of the really dark time, and it was the last opportunity to have something light and warm and funny and the last light tone before all the darkness,” Temime said. ”The terrible time follows. So it was very nice for us to give it the maximum. It’s like when you look at pictures of weddings  right before the war. They look happy but there’s the edge to it, too. Like if you saw the film ‘The Deer Hunter’ and they had that wedding before everything got so dramatic. They are embracing life. When you are almost sure you are going to lose your life, you appreciate the moment and you live for the moment. That was my approach to that wedding scene of ours. Everyone is trying to get the maximum.”

Temime also discusses the design inspiration for Fleur's wedding dress:

“For the wedding dress, I wanted it to be a witch wedding dress but not a Halloween dress. The dress is white but it needed to have something fantastic to it. So there is the phoenix [motif], the bird, which is a symbol of love in a way  because there is rebirth, love never dies, it is born again. So we have that in front of the dress to give a feeling of eternal love. It was the symbol of Dumbledore, too, but it is the symbol of love for the dress.”

Additionally, Temime comments on the overall aspects of creating costumes for witches and wizards:

“It’s a world parallel to us, it’s a secret society living next to the other world, our world. They have their way and their own culture but they cannot ignore the real world, they are next to it always. They constantly have access to it. So I looked at extreme cultures, or the fringe or the outsiders. Any parallel society, like the gypsies or political groups on the edge. They have their own way of doing things but they also live in 2010 and they cannot ignore what they see.  So they have their pointed hats and their long robes and they have their couture, but they also have blue jeans. They have their traditions but they cannot ignore the modern world.”

You can see the rest of the article here. Thanks to Jamie for the tip!