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In James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, releasing on Christmas Day, Timothée Chalamet goes full method to portray legendary singer Bob Dylan—both in terms of acting (he learned how to sing like Dylan and play several instruments), and dressing. Thanks to the film’s costume designer Arianne Phillips, the star is a total dead-ringer for Dylan on the big screen, slipping into his effortlessly-cool wardrobe of Levi’s flares, leather blazers, and silk shirts. “When telling a story, it’s always important to create bespoke pieces that are right for our actor and our story,” Phillips tells Vogue. “I sourced a few vintage pieces—but mostly everything was made.”
Given Chalamet has 67 different costume changes throughout the film, there were a lot of garments to be made. For Phillips, the film presented a fun, new costume challenge. The story chronicles a specific portion of Dylan’s life, documenting his rise to stardom from 1961 to 1965, crescendoing at the iconic 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It was a short window for Phillips to deliver a strong set of looks. “For a biopic, that’s quite a short runway,” says Phillips. “The onus was on [the costume, hair, and makeup departments] to show an evolution—from Bob showing up in New York City, to finding his own creative voice. At the end of the film, there really is quite a big character arc.”
The costume designer’s research began with a general overview of Dylan’s style, with Phillips pinpointing the archetypes of his wardrobe throughout the 1960s. She researched countless photos from the time period, zeroing in on some of Dylan’s most-worn pieces—including jeans, boots, and leather jackets. “I was first asked to design the film back in 2019, so I had a lot of time to research, which is actually very unusual,” says Phillips. “It was really fun and exciting to be a part of the germination of these iconic pieces that he’s worn throughout his life—even until now, where he’s now in his 80s.”
As Phillips began to identify signature Dylan pieces, it became apparent that jeans were his most-worn staple. “When we first meet Bob in the film, he’s wearing these Dungarees, which were like denim painter’s pants,” says Phillips. Dylan’s appreciation for the American workwear staple is evident on the cover of his 1963 album, The Freewheelin’; Phillips wanted to replicate the exact same pair. “He’s wearing Levi’s 501s,” she says. “Levi’s has a great archive department, so I reached out to them and asked them if they could authenticate them.” Turns out, the pair of Levi’s that Dylan wore at the time were customized: they featured a denim insert at the leg to make them even more flared, a DIY detail fashioned by his then-girlfriend, Suze Rotolo. “Suze did that for him so that his jeans would lay nicely over his boots,” says Phillips. The pair made for the film are now being released as part of a special Levi’s capsule collection. Phillips also recreated a pair of 1965 Levi’s Super Slims for film that Dylan wore.
Just like Dylan’s love of jeans, Phillips also focused on getting his affinity for boots right. Again, she wanted to showcase an evolution through his wardrobe—refining the boot styles throughout the film as his fame and notoriety began to rise. “In the beginning, he's wearing these roughed-up work boots, and by 1965 he’s wearing full-on Chelsea boots,” she says. “Every time Bob went to England and did a tour, he came back and his style had evolved; it was clear that he got his Chelsea boots in England. He was a big fan of the Beatles, and that informed his style greatly. Boots and jeans have since really become the archetype for rock and roll.” Pepper in some vests and leather blazers, and Phillips had a collection of pieces that felt true to Dylan's spirit. “The black leather blazer he wore to the Newport festival in 1965 is a silhouette that Bob still wears to this day,” she says.
Of course, Phillips didn’t only have Chalamet’s Dylan to outfit. The costumer also had to craft a wardrobe for all of the secondary characters, not to mention over 5,000 extras, too. For Joan Baez (played by a scene-stealing Monica Barbara), the clothes leaned romantic and free-spirited; For Sylvie (Elle Fanning), the character based on Suze Rotolo, the looks were more beatnik and worldly. “We had endless fittings,” says Fanning of working with Phillips. “[Suze] was a real inspiration to Bob in so many ways. She was very politically active, and really influenced him in that way. Arianne sourced so many photographs that I had never seen of them before during the 1960s—there were a lot of photos of them together, lounging in their apartment that they had.”
Together, they landed on a wardrobe for Sylvie that felt eclectic and youthful. “I did my fitting before we even did a table read, so that was the place to find out who she was,” says Fanning. “We went through different phases of what Sylvie should look like. We sourced a lot of jeans from the ’60s, and they just fit different—they’re just better! There’s also this amazing vintage shaggy fur coat that I wear, and in [Suze’s] memoir, she actually describes it as a coat that Bob got her.” Phillips saw Sylvie’s costumes as a reflection of the young woman's interests and activism. “For me, she embodied this kind of young, free-spirited New York girl, who is very sophisticated and artistic, yet unpretentious,” says Phillips. Fanning’s favorite look? “There were these great pattern combinations of floral sweaters with striped shirts—it looked so Prada,” she says.
Another pivotal character in the film, meanwhile, is Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). For Phillips, it was a return to the character: She costume designed Jaoquin Phoenix’s Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line. “Boyd Holbrook is a different actor than Joaquin Phoenix—they're both brilliant and both have a different physicality, so we approached it a little bit differently,” she says. Though the looks were (not surprisingly) all-black, Phillips had fun exploring how Cash’s personal style bled into Dylan’s this time around. “I really learned about the influence that Johnny Cash had on Bob Dylan,” she says. “After Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash probably had the biggest influence on Bob's style state-bound. Bob ended up wearing a lot of black in the sixties—and Johnny, of course, was the Man in Black.”
Reflecting on costuming the film, Phillips says working on the project was unlike any other she’s done so far. It combined the research and depth of a historical biopic, with the creativity and freedom required when depicting a pop culture icon. “We had so many fittings—I don't even think I can count how many fittings,” says Philips. Her favorite memories were the special moments she shared with the cast through it all. “We were all kind of in bootcamp—we would have these sessions just pulling pieces,” says Phillips. “Timmy would show up with a guitar, and we would play music. He would be rehearsing in our fittings.” Fashion and a show.
