Safowa Bright Bitzelberger discusses designing costumes for Netflix's Griselda
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger has made a name for herself as a costume designer, having various responsibilities on shows such as Raven's Home, Ballers, Instant Mom, Body of Proof, Law & Order: LA, and most recently, Griselda, starring Sofia Vergara, a series that has earned Safowa Bright Bitzelberger an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Period Costumes For A Limited Or Anthology Series. Safowa Bright Bitzelberger discusses the significance and excitement surrounding her Emmy nomination and the hard work and research that went into how the costume department helped bring Griselda's story and characters to life.
Culturess: What goes into determining looks for each individual character in Griselda?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: So much research goes into specifically this project and the time period and that's pretty much across the board. I think this project is very unique in that it's about a real person, even if it's from a fictional perspective in some ways, and some of it is a little more straightforward. But the challenge for this project is that, because of the subject matter, because it's about Griselda Blanco and the drug cartels in Miami, Columbian drug cartels, it's not like there's a massive amount of research beyond a great deal of law enforcement footage or mug shots and such.
In general, a drug cartel is not really going to want to be out there publicly. It's not the equivalent of if they were a celebrity. So that impacted what we had as specific research of the specific people, and Griselda Blanco, in general, was a very private person, and so there were a number of photos but really just a handful of her life behind the scenes. That's why when you put in her name, you really just see the same mug shot over again and a few photos behind the scenes of her life. So, that was challenging when we were doing the research, my team and myself. But, of course, then you take a huge and deep dive into the time period, and we really utilized every resource possible, whether it's media, footage, catalogs, all of those things. We were really fortunate, for both time periods, to have an amazing resource of rental houses here in Los Angeles. Amazing rental houses as well as an endless amount of beautiful vintage pieces that we were able to get our hands on because there are so many wonderful vintage vendors locally within California and across the country. So between that, and the research, and using your imagination and piecing together, based on the character, what you think they would wear aesthetically and I think that it came together well. I'm really pleased with how it came together.
Culturess: How do you sort through hundreds of outfits and racks of vintage pieces to determine what works best for each character?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: First, you have your research. You put together concept boards based on the research. Then you have a team of very skilled people as well as yourself. There's so much to procure, specifically with vintage, because also the sizing is challenging, so even if you measure an actor head to toe and all of that, it can be a challenge when you get these vintage pieces because I don't know if you're familiar with vintage, but the bodies are very different. Even if you're used to wearing clothes differently. Men are used to wearing clothes lower. We're used to having stretch in clothes versus being non-stretchy. So, it really can impact how something fits. So, when it comes to vintage, it's almost like you have to pull triple the amount, and it really is the norm, whether it's contemporary or period, you always have to have at least to find that perfect pant or dress or shoe, you really have almost ten times what you hope to land on. It can be very daunting initially, but your team and yourself also has the concept boards to use as a tool conceptually, and then, it's like throwing a wide net out to all of the vendors and rental houses, and we're also fortunate, especially on this project, I was really fortunate to have an amazingly gifted made-to-order team that could make custom garments based on an illustration, based on a garment that maybe you loved it but it's in the wrong color. Or, because we had so many stunts, if you watch Griselda there's a lot of killing that goes on, and just stunts in general.
So we always have to have two, three, four, five, six of the original piece. So even if you find the perfect color, size, texture, everything, for whichever character, you will have to multiply it. Having a gifted team like that makes all the difference. Once you have these racks, you put everything together, and you group it by character, and then within that, you group it by tops with tops and pants with pants, and such, then you put outfits together, and then you narrow it down. Say you have ten racks, maybe you narrow it down to five of your favorites, or four, then you have a fitting. Fittings, I love fittings, and you can sort of quickly see how things will be worn by the actor depending on the actor specifically. Sofia, she really had a firm direction of what she felt was right for Griselda, and so that was a gift because then you can just run with it, and you can very quickly know, 'Oh, this is it. Let's go in this direction,' and just keep trying pieces, and then you narrow it down, and you discuss it with our amazing director, Andrés Baiz, and our cinematographer was very involved. They really worked in tandem. So, when I shared a fitting with Andy, I would also usually share them with Armando Salas, our amazing cinematographer who's also Emmy nominated for the project. So, it's great, it's very collaborative.
Culturess: What does it mean to you to be nominated for an Emmy this year?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: It's everything. I think that professionally, it makes you feel validated and acknowledged, and that is just exceptional. Personally, I think that it just means a great deal to me for those reasons. But also, it was a very challenging project time-wise and energy and just ambitious, and it was executed by all the creatives exceptionally well. I can speak for myself: when you work on a project, you dedicate yourself, and you commit yourself one-hundred and fifty percent to it, you aren't really thinking about awards. You are just thinking about doing the best job you can within the parameters of the project, and you do your very best. So, to be acknowledged on top of that is amazing. I also don't always see people that look like me in the industry and on crews so I feel like it means even more.
Culturess: What would you say are the most iconic outfits from Griselda?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: Oh, there are so many. But let's focus on episode five, which is the one that's up for an Emmy. There's a couple and it's across the board. For Sofia, I love the white lace dress that she has on as we shift forward, and at the very top of that episode, we were tasked with a number of challenges, which was to very quickly show the time jump by about three or four years from '78 to '81 and aesthetically it's a big jump, from the seventies to the eighties. So we were really tasked with that, showing not just the time change and the new decade aesthetically and trends but also that she is now at the helm. She is leading it all. That's why I love that dress because it's a little bit different than what she has had on obviously, aesthetically and trend-wise from a previous decade, but also, she's just so calmly sitting there badass, now behind the velvet rope. People are now waiting to talk to her, which is a parallel from earlier in the series where she was behind that velvet rope on the other side many times, hoping to be acknowledged, hoping to get a chance, and now the roles are reversed.
So we went with a dress, which I think, initially, when you see a woman fighting for every level that she wants to attain and dealing with the misogyny within whatever industry, it's not just in cartels, it's everywhere, many times you feel like you have to change, maybe emulate a man in order to fit in. You have to wear slacks. You need to wear a power suit, especially for the eighties. But we decided to go with a dress and we just balanced it with dark hose and these amazing dark shoes, things that grounded her so that there was this polarity. That's one of my favorite dresses. Then, obviously, the other challenge is when you have an episode that takes place later throughout this long party that takes a long portion of the episode; there's so much pressure on each outfit that everyone is in. A lot of thought went into what she was wearing for the party. She is also very physical in it, fighting and coming undone emotionally, so I avoided making it too embellished, but I loved that. That has a lot going on, and I decided not to embellish it with beading because I knew that the shots with her coming undone were going to be pretty tight, and I really didn't want something to distract from her performance. For her, those are my two favorites. Rivi was amazing. He looks good in anything you put him in, and he just struts and carries himself so well that it was a joy to dress him, too, and really fun. He really brought his character and this really gritty sexiness to it, and that was added onto every outfit that we put him in.
Culturess: How did you make the outfits distinct for each time period and keep it in tune with the character development that they were at during certain points in the timeline?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: The research is going to give you the direction aesthetically and time period-wise. But, specifically, as we jump forward and show how she has created, in a relatively short time, we're not talking about ten or fifteen years later; she jumps forward, and she's a billionaire, it's under five years. So, we chose to, even though I dialed back on her appearing trendy and wearing every designer that Griselda absolutely could have afforded, I got those creative juices out, and we sort of pointed to the level of the financial level of everyone around her. So we turned up the volume, the knob, on everyone else, and then we still had to honor the aesthetic that they had in the seventies. It's a rare occasion that someone that is edgy and has a rocker edge and something along those lines, they're not going to suddenly aesthetically jump forward and become a preppy person five years later. I think that's a really good example. For Griselda, we made sure, I wanted to honor the time period and the class level, and that was reflected in the fabrications and the clean lines, and the elegant pieces that I put her in when we jumped forward in the eighties.
For Rivi, it was a little different. We still had that edge but he put his own stamp on the eighties style. So maybe we had something with broad shoulders, and the blazer rolled up on his forearms, but it didn't look like Miami Vice. It had an edge to it. It had a grittiness, it had a darkness to it, and that matched his aesthetic from the previous decade. So that's how you have that continuity, and you have that parallel that shifts over. If we had shown him in the nineties, it would've been the same thing, I think. It would've been a nineties interpretation of the person that he is, and the same thing with Dario is a good example. He, as Griselda's husband, he was like a higher gunman, and he was sort of there to protect her and then they developed this love and passion to live their life together and build a family, but that was something he wanted. She wanted a family, but most important was the power. That was her goal, and unfortunately, it sort of took precedence over prioritizing family and her relationship with Dario. But, he's a good example of when we discussed his evolution into that next decade, and as her husband and now being alongside her in many ways, he's leveled up. But he didn't want to be Mr. Trendy at all, and initially, we discussed keeping some of the pieces. What we settled on, and what I believed was that result, was Griselda was not going to let her husband not reflect that he also was benefitting from the wealth. So what we chose is fabrications, elegant pieces, beautiful simple, well-tailored pieces that looked like they were a million bucks, but he wasn't, again, Mr. Miami Vice. He kept a lot of his pieces. He kept his jewelry. He still had his shirt open many buttons, and that's how he kept his personality a little bit.
Culturess: How did you design clothes to accommodate the stunt sequences?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: That's where custom-made comes in. We procured so many vintage pieces. We had a mini costume house. But the one challenge is that you can rarely find them in multiple. It's really hard. We still found five shirts in many styles. We had at least four or five racks of multiples, many shirts, many pants, and we would use those on some of the stunt actors. But when it came to the specific cast like Griselda or Carmen when she was getting attacked by Griselda during the party, we had those pieces made inspired by some vintage silhouettes, but it really gives you the flexibility to make it whatever you want and have as many as you need in the wings, and I definitely subscribe to having a back-up for the back-up's back-up. No matter what something is going to cost, to make one more or to buy one more, it will always be one-hundred times more expensive to have to hold camera because you didn't have one extra shirt because you were trying to save a little money and time, but now you've gone through four of the multiples, you need a fifth because something happened, and so you have someone washing the one that got damaged and you really don't want to do that.
Holding camera or even having anyone wait or seeming like you weren't prepared, so as many times as I have to make that executive decision when one was made, you don't always get a straight answer, so custom-made is where you go for that, and we were so fortunate, my head of work room, Joanne Mills Trotta, is also nominated as part of my team, and she could make anything. You could sketch something; she could make it. You could hold up that beautiful blouse and say, 'Can we make it in this fabric for this size, and can I have ten of them?' and she would say, 'Okay, come back in a little bit, and let's get this going. I'll mock up a sample for you.' That's where the tenured and talented artisans within my craft really are grateful for and valued.
Culturess: How did you, or how were you inspired to design outfits that projected Griselda's power without using pants?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: Well, specifically when it came to the silhouettes we focused on as she came to her highest power level, the good thing about the eighties is you have those broad shoulders, you have that contrast. So, that was not hard in many ways and a number of pieces, even if they were a pantsuit, even if they were a skirt suit, that is ivory, I was able to, I chose harsher lines and more structured to the garment itself than it being billowy and soft.
So, I wanted the suit that I had her in when they're showing a montage of how she's arrived and how that parallels her going to a salon, a Miami salon, and just being a normal person early on in the series, now you show her and she has like a boss suit. She is walking badass into this very high-level salon, she has her hangers on, everyone is scrambling to attend to her, and she's wearing a brocade suit that is a self-colored, it has texture, but most importantly, there's structure to it, and she looks amazing. Even though she's wearing a skirt suit, the shoulders are still feminine, of course, but the eighties really allowed me to have that structure in many ways. So, that was also a blessing, and I added that many other times when we would have her in a silhouette. We also grounded it with dark hose many times and dark shoes. That was one of Sofia's ideas that we honored, and it was just great. I mean, it was a great concept, and it really paired well and balanced the aesthetics.
Culturess: Is there a difference when it comes to determining clothes for your main cast and supporting characters in comparison to extras?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: Yes. I mean I think that usually you will spend more money. In general, you tend to use the more precious pieces, even if it's just this precious rental that is delicate and fragile. So, you are going to obviously feature certain pieces on your main cast and you can get away with featuring something differently. But, many times, even for example, in this case, because we didn't want Griselda to appear overly trend-conscious, and back then, you didn't have people styling you. Nowadays, even if an actor or a performer, someone in the spotlight, style isn't their thing, trend, stylists are very prevalent. Everyone in the public eye has a stylist, even politicians. But back then, you didn't.
So we really didn't want to look like she was being styled, and we didn't want to look like her other concern was procuring all these material things. When she procured material things like her mansion, her cars, and the money she had, it was, of course, she's going to live in a beautiful home and get cars for her sons and her husband and have all these material things. But it's not something that she was overly concerned about. It was the power that came with the money. So, for her, when it came to representing trends, we didn't want it to look like the clothes were wearing her. So, in that case, I had so many amazing vintage designer pieces that we chose not to put on her because again it would not go with the direction that we were discussing. It might be overly ornate, overly trendy, overly embellished, distracting. That's the case where I was able to get them on characters like Carmen. She leveled up even though she was against Griselda's involvement in the cartels and she, of course, warned her. She was the voice of reason and ethics in her ear. But, she definitely, as you see, she spent her money on fancier garments, jewelry, her Porsche, her house with a view of the water, all of these things. So I was able to get designer pieces on her, which was great, and of course Marta, who also had money, Marta Ochoa. She was from a drug cartel, a family that was involved with a drug cartel. So, I was able to get many designer pieces on her, and the only challenge was because so much of the episode takes place at the party, I wished I could've had twenty more outfits on Marta because she also was just a joy to dress as well as Carmen and Rivi, and Dario.
So this is a case where you did put many designer pieces on background or extras. You usually don't do that, or when you do, you need to be really selective. In this case, we were still selective, and once we knew the blocking, or we would choose, say, there'll be thirty background actors or fifteen that you really have in these amazing designer pieces or iconic pieces, that's when we were able to work with our AD department and make sure that they were placed, or speak with the director and they'd be like, 'Oh I love those,' and I'd be like, 'Okay good,' and make sure that they're directly in the background of Griselda or Jason so they're definitely going to get on camera. But it was so many back-ups at Griselda's party, it was like hundreds so we had many bodies and chances to put designer pieces on.
Culturess: Is it easier or harder to come up with looks for a character that has a lack of interest in fashion?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: It can be challenging both ways. I think it's just part of the creative process. Sometimes, it's fun to have someone that you're trying to reflect that style isn't their thing. But, I'm going to admit, it's always fun when you have a character like Marta. She's always had money. All she does is party. That's her life: getting high, doing drugs, partying, she has a decadent lifestyle. So, it is absolutely a joy to dress a character when they're someone who just loves wearing clothes, which she did. I'll admit, it is fun dressing someone, a character that they're supposed to be fashionable or have their finger on the pulse aesthetically and trend-wise. It's always a joy.
Culturess: Is there a difference in how you work toward a period piece in comparison to a show that takes place in the present day?
Safowa Bright Bitzelberger: I think research. I mean, I think the period research is important, and you really have to do a deep, deep dive, which is what we did, and research takes a great deal. If you right now went to Google and punched in cool seventies outfits or whatever or 1978, what will come up is disco, what will come up is bell bottoms, what will come up are a lot of maybe costumes that you would wear to a seventies-inspired party. Then, even if you press the next page, you still will get images like that. So you really have to do research upon research, a deep dive; it's like going to one page and the next one and next one and next one. Sometimes what's most useful is if you're able to get private photos from people that lived and were from that time period and country, that is sometimes very valuable. Even things like catalogs, newspapers, and not just magazines, but, again, you get a little bit of a sliver of real life, and I think that is one of the biggest differences of working on a contemporary project versus a period piece, and you want to honor that period. Not just the period, but also the specifics of those characters, the environment, the class level, everything, and that's what I feel when you step back and look at the project and look at the series. I think that that's what you see. It's not just pretty 1980s or pretty 1970s. It's specific to Miami, that community, that class level, just so many things, the Columbian community, the drug cartels, all of those elements are what shaped the perspective and shaped the look of Griselda across the board, and I'm including hair and make-up and production design on our amazing production designer Knut Loewe, his creative team, set decoration, furniture, cars.
I think, when you compare the impact, don't get me wrong, I love contemporary projects too, I really love them, but when you step back, and you see everyone in costumes that are period, they have period hairstyles, wigs, make-up, suitcases, there's a great shot of when all of her girls have arrived from Miami with their cocaine-stuffed bras and she picks them up and they arrive, this is in the late seventies, and you can just see everyone in their ensemble, they're kind of a combination of bad girls, a lot of them live alternative lifestyles. But it's not just that. It's the airport. It's the cars that are passing behind them, and they're all seventies, and they're all late seventies, and so much thought went into all of those things. The design of the airport. Every single element is what is coming together. The suitcases that you see everyone carrying, and they didn't have roller suitcases, and you had the one with the handle, it's everything that comes together, and it's just every single element. So, that's what I have to say. It's a world that you build, and the world-building is what I enjoy about period projects. Of course, you do world-building with contemporary, too, and an immense amount of research goes into contemporary, but specifically for this project, that's what I loved.
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