Dune: Top 10 Best Costumes

by Cláudio Alves

Dune feels more like a period movie than a sci-fi extravaganza as fashioned by costume designers Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan. West, who studied Art History, has described the aesthetic she and Morgan conceived as "mod-ieval, looking to the past for the distant future." While the story takes us to a faraway tomorrow, the world doesn't look new. Instead, it feels ancient, used-up before we ever laid eyes on it, sand-blasted but not rotten like the Lynch movie. Stuck in feudalistic pageantry and a political system that squashes the individual under imperial rule, Dune is an anachronism expanded to the monumentality of a space opera. An incredibly ambitious project, the movie deserves applause for its scale and, indeed, its costumes. 

Even the most negligible extra in the background of scenes is splendidly dressed, their ensembles as thought-through as the hero costumes. With that in mind, I decided to highlight this sartorial glory by re-watching the flick ins search of its best looks, be they worn by movie stars or background actors. There's so much to admire…

Before getting into the top 10, there's an honorable mention. Jessica's ochre gown is the movie's most dazzling ensemble. However, I didn't put it on my top 10 for the simple fact it could have been so much better. The images shared on social media by the costume team and actors reveal that the original headpiece by Virag Kerenyi was much superior to what ended up on-screen. Instead, the Medieval influence was toned down in favor of homogenous Orientalism. This makes Ferguson seem too in tune with the people of Arrakis in a scene that benefits from radical contrasts.

The following ten costumes are more successful if less glamorous than Lady Jessica's dazzling finery:

10) Romanov Elegance

West cites the Romanov Imperial family and the movie version of Fahrenheit 451 as influences on the look of the Atreides clan when in Caladan. The Historical reference is especially telling, serving as an omen of the family's incoming demise at the hands of the Harkonnens. That being said, the outfits serve another purpose, far beyond historical symbolism. In their weight and dark color – primarily black and mossy midnight greens –  the fashions of Caladan contrast with the reality of Arrakis. There's something melancholic in the sight of these people enjoying their greatcoats before such pieces of clothing become impossible to withstand in the desert heat. Moreover, there's an austerity to this vision of nobility, deep sadness, and maybe a sense of incoming but inevitable loss.

9) The Atreides armor

When they arrive in Arrakis, the Atreides fashions lose their tragedy to get closer to absurdity. Like brutalist buildings worn by human bodies, their traditional armor is a bulky and ostentatious creation that has no place in the hot desert. Watching the Duke and his men arrive in their new planetary fiefdom, one senses something that the Fremen know for a fact – these people from the outer world don't belong here. They never will. In some ways, the architectural costumes are a visualization of colonialism at its most bumbling and inept.

8) Baron Harkonnen's robes

Rather than underlining the Baron's rotund form through bulbous fashions, the costuming team devised a look that takes full advantage of the villain's floating mechanism. Over a fat suit, the actor wears black silk robes with billowy sleeves and long serpentine lengths of fabric that create gauzy towers whenever the body elevates itself to impossible heights. It's a clever junction of special effects and costume design, a way to make the Baron more threatening than ridiculous – an issue Lynch's Dune wasn't able to resolve successfully. He's a villain, not a joke.

7) The Bene Gesserit 

The costumes of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood could be described as a stylized futuristic vision of the abaya, perchance a Catholic nun's habit. Going further into occultism, West has said Charlotte Rampling's dress was taken from the Queen in the Marseille tarot. The result is a religious mismatch that reflects the state of spiritualism in Dune's cosmos, where the religions of Earth have been condensed into a single text, the Orange Catholic Bible. There's also an element of strategy, a hint of chess-like silhouettes that reveal how the Sisterhood's fundamental purposes are political rather than spiritual.

6) A Humble Gardener

There's harsh beauty to be found in all the nooks and crannies of Dune. No other costume exemplifies this better than this gardener's ensemble. Even though the cloth is poor and rough, its texture palpably scratchy, the shape draws fluid lines while keeping the man protected from the sun. The hat is especially interesting, seeming more in tune with the non-indigenous vegetation that the gardener nurses than the surrounding architecture of Arrakeen. Like the palm trees, this figure is a morsel of gentility and tonal variation in the brutal landscape of the city.

5) Lady Jessica's Black ensemble 

While the designers have named Giotto and Goya as two significant references in the design of Rebecca Ferguson's costumes, I found them reminiscent of other artistic expressions. Far from Medieval fashions or the shadows of Late 18th-century Spain, the fluidity of Ferguson's draped gowns reminded me of the Bélle Epoque. It's the quality of her cloth coverings, the movement of the textiles, and how they alter Ferguson's figure. As framed by Villeneuve and shot by Greig Fraser, Lady Jessica dressed in black is like an extension of the shadows of Caladan's court, an apparition that emerges from darkness. It's maybe the simplest of all her costumes - the most effective too.

4) Harkonnen Servants

Instead of grace amid brutalities, like the Arrakeen gardener, these Harkonnen, and their costumes serve to inject more violence into the visual cosmos of Dune. There's a putrid hedonism to the Atreides' enemies and the wealthy men's love for subjugating the dispossessed and humiliating them through servitude. The translucent plastic uniforms of the Harkonnen medics exemplify this wordlessly. Naked bodies are easily perceived beneath the clothes, exposing the wearer and making us, the viewer, feel complicit in their misery. The odd gloves are the cherry on top, a dissonant note of weirdness that further unsettles those who gaze upon these unfortunate people.

3) Stillsuits

Sure, spice is life, but in the desert of Arrakis, water is as essential for life as it is rare. The preservation of moisture is imperative for survival, making the stillsuits developed by the Fremen the key to living on the planet and walking across its scorching surface. Taking their cues from Herbert's prose, the movie's suits attempt to conceptualize imaginary technologies whose functionality doesn't eradicate beauty.

The nervy outfits in shades of grey look like sculptures fitted to each actor like an exoskeleton. Furthermore, the gauze wraps West added to the armor-like concoctions give the costumes a romantic edge, an interplay of softness and hard surfaces. When Duncan Idaho wears his stillsuit and a linen cape billowing in the wind, he looks like a classic hero of old, some noble knight straight out of a gritty fairytale.

2) The Spacing Guild

What happens when you cross 14th-century Avignon papacy and astronaut suits? Well, you get the Spacing Guild of the Dune universe, of course. Or, at least, you get their costumes. The absence of any denuded skin and the secrecy of unseen faces confers inhumanity to these humans, making them alien and alienating, visions we're not ready, or even willing, to fully comprehend. Beautiful and frightening, the Spacing Guild is a golden nightmare. When they appeared on-screen, I wanted to stand up and cheer for West and Morgan, their ingenuity and creativity, their ability to create such an arcane future that feels as if it's already in the past – History that hasn't occurred yet.

1) Sardaukar Singer 

There's not much to know about this person beyond costume and sound design. Whoever they are, only two shots of Dune have them in it. They sing a throaty chant, ritualistic noise that scores the Sardaukar Imperial troops as they prepare for battle. And yet, I can't stop thinking about this figure, how the costume makes them look like part of the otherworldly architecture. It's the mastery in how, through one measly design, West and Morgan have devised the perfect summation of a future where humans have had to turn into computers after jihad annihilated artificial intelligence from the known Universe. Costumes like this are world-building at its best and most cinematic, a minimal glimpse that crystalizes centuries of fictitious History.

What are your favorite costumes from Villeneuve's Dune?

Comments

[thevoid99]

Honestly, if this doesn't win Best Costume. Then the Oscars ain't worth shit.

[Fadhil]

Gah this movie was instantly a masterpiece. Rebecca Ferguson was also just transcending.
For one, I actually thought the flowy dress that ended up in the movie is better as it does signify wealth but also not showy enough that it would alienate the Fremen.

[ScottC]

Your point about the inevitable end of Romanov Elegance is a good one. Those are very fitting. Otherwise, yeah maybe they are some of the most costume-y, but the ochre gown, the Spacing Guild, and the Bene Gesserit are all top-notch designs.

[Lynn Lee]

As always, Cláudio, love reading your take on costumes.