Austrian costume designer Tanja Hausner has always wanted to be just that. Before studying Law for three years because she wasn’t sure Costume Design could even be studied – or where, for that matter –, Hausner shadowed her eighteen-year older set designer sister, now painter, Xenia Hausner, “I was always fond of dressing up with all the pieces of clothing that belonged to my family and their friends. I collected everything. And then, I had a puppet which I put the costumes on,” she tells Fade to Her at the 37th European Film Awards.
Hausner is now a celebrated and award-winning costume designer who can boast with having been bestowed upon a European Excellence Award for European Costume Design at the 37th European Film Awards for her work on The Devil’s Bath by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz. The film is set in Austria in the eighteenth Century, a time when forests surround villages and killing a baby gets a woman sentenced to death. Agnes, the protagonist, readies for married life with her beloved, but her mind and heart grow heavy, giving room to evil thoughts.
Indeed, it is a cold, harsh existence marked by hardship that the film depicts and it is reflected in the very few colors and materials of people’s garments. As there are no historical paintings or drawings that show farmers or ordinary folk from rural eighteenth Century Austria, Hausner had to invent a new reality that can be true for the century in question, but that could also work as a general statement, in order to design the costumes for The Devil’s Bath, “The most important thing was to make authentic costumes. You thought about what materials were available. What was this hard rural life like? What was, for example, fishing in muddy ponds like? So, I had to invent a kind of fishing uniform,” she recalls.
In that sense, there were no rubber boots back then, but they made long boots and aprons out of thick leather, “which was very heavy and uncomfortable for the actors and, to add, I even made them wear scratchy pullovers to make it more inconvenient. It should show this really tough life,” she recounts.
Hausner says the first thing Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala asked her to do was to introduce a mistake in every garment, a very demanding task for the costume designer. “It was very important for them that they somehow be mistaken, somehow ugly.”
But she had a lot of time to prepare. A lot of time to color and paint all the costumes, but also to destroy them and make them again from scratch. This was because shooting was postponed for a year, “We had even more time to prepare everything, which is not usual. When you get to productions, you don’t know anybody. They ask you to make the costumes, and you have only two or three months,” Hausner shares.
It was also important for her to show the evolution of the protagonist’s mental state and subsequent mental breakdown through the costumes, “They didn’t have many clothes during this time, so they don’t change very much when she becomes a wife. We thought about the wedding dress. What it could be like. It’s not white. It started to be white in the nineteenth century. So, back then, they just had normal dresses. It’s the only time she’s wearing a dress. Then, in the other scenes, she’s wearing more or less her nightgown, which is also her shirt and her skirt and her jacket. So, this was a special thing about her wedding – the fact that she was wearing a dress which was still kind of grey and blue. There is also this crown, which reminds us of the crucifixion,” she says.
According to Hausner, if a costume designer knows her director(s) beforehand, the making of the costume becomes easier, especially when it is helping them complete the character and tell their story. But it also makes it easy for her to fight for her vision. She feels more comfortable and encouraged to do so, “I have my personal vision, and it’s also interesting, they have their own visions, and it all comes together. And then, during fitting, the actors have their vision too, and we try to put it all together. And, this is the most important, interesting and exciting thing, I think, while making costumes,” she explains.
Every artist has rituals or little things or habits they perform to get in the zone and Hausner is no different. Research is that thing for her. “I love research. I love looking at books, paintings and so on,” she says.
Who does she look up to in terms of costume design?
“Sandy Powell,” Hausner responds unflinchingly.
In terms of women in film today, Hausner doesn’t think there has been any change in terms of the demands of women on set, “Filming also always means that you have to be there from eight in the morning, all the time and for weeks, and you have to leave your family. And, there are a lot of men working in Film, and they have no problem. Apparently, they are also fathers, but they never seem to have any problem. I always tried to organize everything and find people who could be with my children when I’m on set. I always tried to reduce my time on set and just be there for the most important moments. If costumes are shown or shot first, you have to be there as a costume designer, but I don’t like waiting for hours and days just to have this costume shot, because I have to be somewhere else as well. As a woman, I feel more responsible, often, obviously, for my family, than all the guys that can be away for weeks.”
The only difference, however, that she notices is the increase in the number of women directors, which makes it a more pleasant experience on set as there is more mutual understanding, “They have more understanding, but they also want to have the best thing done, and everybody has to contribute, and everybody has to be there,” Hausner concedes.
Now that there is more concern regarding the environment and productions are looking for more sustainable ways of making films, costumes are not spared in terms of restrictions in the name of a greener filmmaking approach, but Hausner is all for that, “I have no problem with that because I’m very fond of using second hand things. Also, costume stocks are very important for me,” she says.
Photo credits: European Film Academy.
This interview was conducted in person at the 2024 European Film Awards.
