There aren’t that many characters who can be immediately identified by their costume, but all you need is is a white dress and maybe an umbrella to figure out you’re looking at Mary Poppins. As one of Walt Disney’s most beloved characters, she’s seeped into just about every facet of pop culture over the years, and recently had brand new life breathed into her with 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns which picks up with the character some 20 years later. It’s a new Mary, but she’s still the same old Mary we know, love, and cherish.
Her costumes also appear strikingly similar to the ones she was wearing in 1964, and even though times have certainly changed, and that was the point. There was no need to completely “reboot” the character for modern audiences, so costume designer Sandy Powell looked back while also looking forward for Mary’s look — and earned an Oscar nomination or doing so.
Ahead of the home release of Mary Poppins Returns, I jumped on the phone with Powell to talk through the inspiration and execution for many of the costumes in the film, including what is now an iconic bathing suit look for Mary Poppins. Whoever thought that in this day and age, Mary would head to the beach?
Rachel Paige: The costumes in Mary Poppins Returns reflect the original, but they're still very different. Were you intentionally trying to forge a new path or just stay as true to the original as possible?
Sandy Powell: Obviously we had to bear the original in mind because it would've been wrong to have made it look so completely different, as if it was in another world. It's still the same world. London is still the same London, except it's 25 years later so it's London in the 1930s. Some of the characters are the same characters, but 25 years later. And Mary Poppins is the same character, just in a different body and updated. That was really the only reference point. We referred to the original characters, but not necessarily the actual items of clothing. Maybe the feeling. You pay homage to the essence of the original.
RP: What was it like to be given the reins to Mary Poppins, a character that is so identifiable by her wardrobe?
SP: It was a challenge and I was flattered that I was given that job. People keep asking me, "Were you scared? Was it daunting?" And I suppose I didn't think about it at the time, but looking back on it, yes, yes it was. I had to come up with something that wasn't gonna disappoint. I mean, the great thing was that it was Emily Blunt [playing Mary] who I've worked with before and know very well. [Director] Rob Martial's brief was that she wasn't gonna be a frumpy nanny; she had to be chic and elegant. So that's always good. That's always a good brief, if you can make somebody elegant. But still sort of still maintained the propriety of a nanny. She still had to be sort of buttoned up and correct, but look chic in doing so.
RP: The costumes in the animated scene were completely all hand painted. How long did that process take, from start to finish?
SP: I wish I could tell you the exact [time]. I mean, there’s [no] ridiculous statistic like it took 10 people three weeks to make one costume. There was several weeks of trying things out. Number one, trying out different fabric, seeing how paint reacted onto different fabrics, behaved on different fabrics, because we needed a base cloth, like a white or a cream base cloth sort of rather like a canvas. And we actually ended up using lots of cottons and canvas and stuff like that for the costumes because the paint worked very well on it.
There was lots of trial and error... we'd do a trial costume and then the painters would paint the patterned pieces that were sewn together to give them a base coat to actually do all the base stuff. They then had to really understand...where the seams all went.
The costume's then put together and then it goes back to the painters to do all the embellishment and the lines and everything on top, so it was a very long process and took a lot of people. And not only that. I mean every costume, there are multiples. There are sort of three or four made of each costume, so they had to do the same thing over and over again.
RP: Do you think you'll ever find yourself hand painting costumes again in the future or was this the only time you're going to do it?
SP: Well, do you know what? Nearly on every job there is some kind of painting on costumes, but it's not as obvious. I mean, even on normal costumes, if we're making a costume from scratch, it will always go to the painting department to be sprayed into or painted into, to make it either look aged or to make it lived in, or to just take off the flatness that sometimes brand new modern fabrics have. So I always use a painting department anyway, but just not in such an obvious way.
RP: The movie also features the first ever Mary Poppins bathing suit. Did you ever think you would be designing swimwear for her?
SP: No, I suppose not. I didn't really think about that and that actually was a tricky one. It says in the script it's 1930, they dive in, and they're wearing swimwear, and they're wearing 1930s swimwear. At that point I did actually go to [Rob] and say, "I don’t think it's going to be right for Mary Poppins to be in a 1930s swimwear, because it's not a million miles away from [swimwear today]. There'll be a lot of leg, [but] you've only just met Mary Poppins. Do you think she should be showing her legs off in a swimsuit for the first number [in the movie]?"
[Rob] said, "Oh no, that's a bit weird. Let's do different swimwear. Let's do Victorian swimwear," which is why it is that, why we did that period, really; just because we thought Mary Poppins shouldn't be showing her legs off quite so soon in the film.”
RP: Do any of Mary or Jane Banks’ outfits have pockets?
SP: They all have pockets — well, Jane's definitely have pockets in the pants and in the jackets. Mary Poppins' have pockets in her coat and jacket, but not in the skirts. Why? That's a funny question.
RP: You always hear conversations like, "Ooh, this dress has pockets," and it's just an exciting thing for women to hear because a lot of the time our clothing doesn’t have pockets.
SP: Quite often, you have to make sure it doesn't spoil the line. I mean, Mary Poppins' skirts couldn't have pockets because they're so sort of fitted and streamlined. The pocket would sort of ruin the shape, I think. And she didn't need pockets in a skirt. I mean she has them in her coat.
Jane definitely had pockets. She's definitely a pocket person.
RP: Can you also talk about Jane's pants, because I know it's very much a conscious decision to give the character pants?
SP: Absolutely. Well, she's the daughter of a suffragette, so she has to sort of carry the flag. She's treading in her mother's footsteps and she's a working women, campaigning for worker's rights and all the rest of it. So she actually had to be the emancipated woman who was rushing around not in high heels, so pants was the perfect look for her.
RP: In the movie there are also a lot of stunts. Mary flies multiple times, at some point everyone dances. Is there a different way you approach costumes knowing that they're gonna have to go through stunts?
SP: Well, you make different costumes for the stunts. You know what I mean? You'll have Mary Poppins' costume that she arrives in or the suit that she's dancing it. You make the perfect one that fits her, and then you make the one where the skirt's got a bit more fullness in it for when she's actually dancing. When she spins, the skirt flares out. Then you have to make if she's in a harness for flying. Everything has to be made slightly bigger to fit the harness underneath, and then there are holes and things cut in. If there's a stunt person standing in for her that will be a different size, you make the costumes fit the stunt person.
So you make different versions of the same costume. I mean I don't design the costume in the first place with the stunts in mind particularly, because nowadays, things like harnesses and all of that are so small and they're not the bulky great big things they used to be. Usually you can adapt your initial thing without it really showing. But basically, the fact is, you have to make more than one.
RP: In all, how many different costumes did you make for Mary, knowing that it's gonna be Emily Blunt and then it'll be a stunt double?
SP: It depends. I think for things, I can't remember the exact number. It's at least four or five total outfits.
Mary Poppins Returns is now available on Digital and 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray.
