If you are going to step onto Pennywise’s turf, you better look good doing it…
The notorious clown has terrorized generations of readers and filmgoers for decades, but there’s something even more terrifying when you start to uncover Pennywise’s history. The HBO series runs with the idea of colorful Americana, but there are teensy tweaks that twist the narrative in a spookier direction. By using red all throughout this first season, costume designer Luis Sequeira returns to Derry to create honey-dipped horror.
It: Welcome to Derry‘s opening title sequence tells you everything about the look of this residential town. Your mind immediately understands what time period we are entering, and Sequeira is quick to remind us that the ’60s in Derry would be very different from the ’60s of, say, New York City or Chicago. Trends may take a little longer to surge further north, and some of these characters are not necessarily mindful of the clothes that they wear.
While color is vibrantly on display for all the characters, my eye kept perking up to the sight of any use of red. Lily wears a sweater in the pilot episode and Marge dons a coat in episode two. The boy that Charlotte defends from being beaten on the street is wearing the color. That particular shade feels like it’s dripping into the everyday clothes of Derry’s residents, and Sequeira talks about how he was careful to utilize it in some places and not others. After all, the most impressive piece comes late in the season worn by this lore’s most infamous entity…
The slick, bloody costume that Pennywise wears towards the end of the season is an absolute triumph, and it alone should garner Sequeira an Emmy nomination. It doesn’t look like anything you have ever seen, and it goes beyond looking blood-soaked. It looks almost like it was created with blood. Sequeira explains how he wanted this garment to continuously look wet when it wasn’t wet at in in moments. It’s a gorgeous example of how costume design can be used as narrative trickery.
Sequeira turns in incredible work project after project–I am hoping he pulls a second nomination for his contemporary work on Netflix’s Vladimir–and here he does something that we all thought nearly impossible: he makes us want to get closer to Pennywise in order to delight in the craftsmanship.
It: Welcome to Derry is streaming now on HBO Max.
