Anna Daniels
In Birds of Prey, popular DC Comics heroes like Black Canary and the Huntress aren’t wearing their traditional costumes, yet they’re almost immediately recognizable as those characters anyway. The trick, Benach says, was looking at the comic books for design elements that would translate well into Birds of Prey‘s unique aesthetic, then playing those up to evoke the outfits that fans are more familiar with.
Take Black Canary, for example. “It was about taking those ideas and then translating them in an urban, wearable, relatable way,” Benach explains. “I went into great detail in my study of the source material.”
She wasn’t alone. Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who plays Dinah Lance in Birds of Prey, communicated with Benach frequently about Canary’s costume. “She would show me a lot of the source material, and then I would show her some other source material, and then she would show me something else, and then I would show her a fashion idea,” Benach says. “We went back and forth a lot, she and I, about looks, and inspirations, and all that kind of stuff.”
The end result was something that honors Black Canary’s classic costume without straight-up recreating it. In the comics, Black Canary is known for her leather jackets, fishnet stockings, and wearing a lot of blue and gold. You can see Birds of Prey‘s version of the character sporting many of the same looks.
“The dress that she’s wearing when she’s singing in the club when we first see her, that is an enlarged fishnet, and underneath it we put gold.” Benach says. When she’s off-stage, Dinah wears a stylish leather jacket, too. “I wanted to take that whole leather jacket thing, I wanted her to look like her own boss. Something about having that really strong-shouldered full-suit look felt really complete to me.”
Same goes for Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Huntress, also known as Helena Bertinelli. “With Huntress, it starts with a silhouette,” shares Benach. “I very much looked into source material for her color palette, black, black and silver, and purple. I knew her cape and her hooded nature was such a part of who she was. I wanted to incorporate that somehow.”
You can see the results on screen. When she first enters the movie, Huntress’ outfit might be toned down, but aside from the missing mask, it has a similar shape to her comic book outfit. In a following flashback sequence, Helena’s tracksuit has hints of a very familiar shade of purple.
Written by: Looper
