Step aside, The Devil Wears Prada 2; there is a new fashion forward film on everyone’s watchlists. Boots Riley's sophomore feature I Love Boosters is an ode to streetwear, exploring how luxury brands steal from urban stylings. Shirley Kurata, the costume designer behind Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, is the mastermind who brought the visual world to life.
Riley and Kurata were first introduced through Milos Milicevic, a 1st Assistant Director who had previously collaborated with each of them on respective projects. Kurata’s Oscar-nominated work on Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, for which she won the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Sci Fi/Fantasy Film in 2022, easily translated to I Love Boosters.
"They are both maximalist films with a lot of different costumes but on an indie budget," Kurata tells PAPER. "Both were so great to work on though and I was given so much freedom to play on both of them!"
In the film, our cover star Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, an Oakland based aspiring designer who becomes a Robin Hood figure of sorts for the high fashion world. Corvette begins working at iconic designer Christie Smith's (Demi Moore) luxury brand, Metro Designer, and opts to "boost" — AKA steal — from her employer alongside her coworkers Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). The mission? To redistribute clothes to the masses that inspired the impossibly-priced styles.
Billed by studio Neon as a "mind-bending odyssey through the world of high fashion and low rent economies," the I Love Boosters is at once both a sartorial and political statement. The project was 20 years in the making, with the film title itself hailing from writer/director Riley's hip hop group The Coup's 2006 track of the same name. The song, released on album "Pick a Bigger Weapon," includes the line "most of it was made by children in Asia / The stores make money off of very low wages." In turn, I Love Boosters spans Bay Area malls to factories in China, charting how garments were crafted — and at what moral cost.
Kurata tells PAPER, "I feel, though, that with Boosters, I could push it a bit more with the fashion and have it be more stylized since the worlds were already so heightened."
Films such as What a Way to Go! were inspirations for designing the distinct looks for each character within the ensemble. The monochromatic pink set contrasted against Shirley MacLaine's all black bathing suits for What a Way to Go! in particular led to how Moore's character Christie was presented onscreen.
Kurata wanted Moore in mostly black to "stand out" against the colorful sets. Moore even offered pieces from her personal closet, according to Kurata. "Demi [included clothes] that she felt fit the vibe of Christie Smith and even shopped some avant garde pieces when she was in London," Kurata tells PAPER. "Our first fitting was about three hours long as we tried on so many looks and settled on pieces that seemed right for the scene and the characters. It was great that she gave me the time to really hash out the costumes and have a conversation with me on what felt the most right."
Lead star Palmer also had to wear a variety of "disguises" especially for the "boosting" scenes. Kurata "studied the way the Oakland locals dressed," and noted that Palmer was "so game" to go bigger and bolder with costume looks. Kurata notes that creating outfits for Palmer's Corvette was like designing looks for a "character with multiple personalities" given her shoplifting criminal alter ego.
“The overarching theme was that anything goes, we could really play with extreme looks but also extremely mundane looks,” Kurata says. “Because the script was so maximalist, Ifelt like it was important to also go there with some of the disguises they were wearing and really have fun with it.”
Kurata adds that she "didn’t exactly create the looks with the music in mind" but that the songs did help her "understand the mood of the script." Instead, Kurata found her own inspiration from some of her favorite fashion brands such as Comme Des Garçons, Prada, Rodarte and Issey Miyake, plus local L.A. indie designers like Leeann Huang, Meals/69, Braindead and KKCO.
Yet Kurata's ultimate favorite place to shop is in Japan.
"I just costume designed a movie that was filmed in Kyoto so I was there for two months and got to really do some great shopping in Kyoto and Osaka," Kurata teases. "I especially love the designer resale shops like Kindal, 2nd Street and Ragtag. I purchased a bunch of vintage Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto pieces. I also love shopping at Muji, Beams, Kapital and Needles and you can’t go wrong with just shopping at their department stores like Takashimaya, Isetan, Daimaru and Parco. The Takashimaya in Kyoto also had a Tsutaya bookstore which has great art books and home goods. There’s also a Mandarake in there, which is great for all the amazing japanese anime and vintage toys. Osaka has some great stores — I love Colombo Cornershop, Tamago Store Byten Shop, The Mongolian Choppsss and Jyuyonsai shop."
"I think 'Boosters' is not just a fashion film, it’s a socio-political art film," Kurata says. "It champions the common man, the creative artists, the marginalized communities and sheds light on the exploitations of the rich and elite. To me, while the film is fantastical and surreal, it is more connected to what is going on in our society today."
Images courtesy of Neon
