{"id":1186657,"date":"2026-02-27T13:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/?p=1186657"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:40:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:40:51","slug":"malgosia-turzanska-hamnet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/malgosia-turzanska-hamnet\/","title":{"rendered":"Malgosia Turzanska Built Hamnet\u2019s Costumes to Crack, Fade and Fall Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hamnet<\/em>, costume designer Malgosia Turzanska didn\u2019t treat the clothing as finished costumes. Instead, she built garments that could shift, deteriorate and evolve alongside the characters wearing them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, Hamnet<\/em> follows Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a healer living in rural England, and her husband Will Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), as they deal with the death of their son. It\u2019s a film about grief, memory and artistic creation, and traces how tragedy shaped Shakespeare\u2019s real-life writing of Hamlet<\/em>. Turzanska\u2019s costumes play a quiet but critical role in grounding that emotional journey, and show how the characters change over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turzanska chose some of the materials for their instability: Agnes\u2019 early bodice, for example, was constructed from bark cloth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of Malgosia Turzanska’s costume designs for Agnes in <\/em>Hamnet. Focus Features.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wood. It\u2019s actually wood fiber,\u201d says Turzanska, who is Oscar nominated for her Hamnet<\/em> costumes. \u201cAnd because she’s a very physical actress, it would breathe and live with her, and gradually kind of come apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the physical breakdown may have been symbolic, it also required constant maintenance during filming. \u201cWe had to mend as we went to keep the wood fibers in their place,\u201d Turzanska explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamnet<\/em> Costume Designer Malgosia Turzanska on a New Approach to Period Films<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Malgosia Turzanska<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Turzanska\u2019s approach differed from traditional period films, as she began with different textures and abstract elements, including plant-based fibers. The materials helped connect Agnes to her natural surroundings.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than fabricate new costumes for each stage of the story, Turzanska stayed true to history and relied on a modular system drawn from Elizabethan clothing practices. There were subtle changes like swapped sleeves or bodices, depending on the scene. But overall, the clothes contain elements a casual viewer may miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was really awesome during the Elizabethan period was that the clothing was so modular, so you could switch out sleeves,\u201d Turzanska explains. \u201cYou barely notice it, because it’s just one element. So it seems like Agnes is wearing one dress for half the film, but it’s actually not one dress. It is gradually shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same approach shaped Will\u2019s costumes, which reflect his emotional withdrawal as the story progresses. \u201cWhen we see him first, he’s in the sort of greenish bluish grays, and then goes less and less saturated, more into gray scale,\u201d Turzanska says. \u201cHe is adding sleeves and building more of a shell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental conditions during filming created additional technical challenges. One leather doublet, treated with a crackle medium to create texture, required frequent repairs because the weather affected its surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Will’s wedding design in <\/em>Hamnet, by Malgosia Turzanska. Focus Features<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the days where it rained really hard, it started coming off,\u201d the designer says. \u201cAll the crew had little paint brushes and little jars of gray paint, and we would fix it as we went.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filming the Globe Theatre scenes presented another unexpected complication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was just blue water dripping onto everything,\u201d Turzanska says, describing how heavy rain caused painted surfaces on set to bleed onto costumes. \u201cWe just bought every single towel that was available, and we had the whole crew constantly wiping blue paint off the costumes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To highlight the film’s performances within the performance, Turzanska knew she had to differentiate the costumes. However, she didn\u2019t want to treat the Globe actors\u2019 costumes too differently from those of the patrons, as performers of the time wore clothing similar to that of their audiences. So she kept the Elizabethan shapes and built costumes out of raw linen, then painted them with latex paint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt put the performances somewhere between then and now,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That restraint and creativity were a through-line of the overall costuming, which Turzanska kept as simple as possible to avoid falling into the trap of glamorizing the period or adding unnecessary detail that would distract from the story. \u201cThe emotional message<\/a> of the movie is very, very simple,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the a crucial costume that appears toward the end of Hamnet<\/em> was minimalist, as Turzanska knew it had to ring true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope the story and costumes keep giving this emotional punch to people,\u201d Turzanska says. \u201cEssentially, yes, Hamnet<\/em> is a movie about grief<\/a>. But it is a movie about the healing power of community and art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main image: Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare in <\/em>Hamnet. Photo by Agata Grzybowska \/ \u00a9 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Hamnet, costume designer Malgosia Turzanska didn\u2019t treat the clothing as finished costumes. Instead, she built garments that could shift,","protected":false},"author":1910,"featured_media":1185993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_comments":false,"cm_data":"","cpt_newsletter_id":0,"tpd_coauthor":[],"tpd_feed_delay":{"delay_type":"default"},"is_tpd_lists_single_post":false,"tpd_featured_posts_arr":"","tpd_franchise_content":"","hide_featured_img_single_post":false,"msn_featured_video":[],"_msn_custom_title":"","tpd_featured_video":[],"tpd_sponsored_post_logo":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_link":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_width":0,"tpd_sponsored_enable_nofollow":true,"tpd_disable_incontent_ads":false,"tpd_disable_right_rail_ads":false,"tpd_disable_after_content_ads":false,"tpd_disable_header_ads":false,"tpd_disable_sticky_footer_ads":false,"tpd_disable_video_ads":false,"tpd_disable_outbrain":false,"tpd_affiliate_disclaimer":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42244,11],"tags":[],"coauthor":[],"feeds":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1186657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-costume-design","8":"category-news"},"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4238_D005_00229_R-428x241.jpg","fimg_url_thumb":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4238_D005_00229_R-428x241.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4238_D005_00229_R-788x444.jpg","author_name":"Amber Dowling","author_avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ef4fe000a395ddc64763134e9c1f71fa4e5fa825d3821a05c500b6b42b4ac6f1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/author\/amber-dowling\/","coauthors":[],"primary_category":{"term_id":42244,"name":"Costume Design","slug":"costume-design","taxonomy":"category","url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/category\/costume-design\/"},"featured_img_medium":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4238_D005_00229_R-788x444.jpg","post_categories":["Costume Design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1185993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186657"},{"taxonomy":"coauthor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthor?post=1186657"},{"taxonomy":"feeds","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feeds?post=1186657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}