How ‘Respect’ costumes interpreted Aretha Franklin’s moods

When veteran Broadway fashion designer Clint Ramos was cast to work on Aretha Franklin’s biopic “Respect,” he soon found himself studying the late singer’s roles as a cultural icon and clothing icon.

“She was a fashion icon but not in the traditional sense,” Ramos says on a phone call from his Manhattan home. “The woman didn’t follow any trends. As she navigated her life story, it seemed clear that her clothes simply followed her life. She wasn’t a fashion board or a model or anything like that—she telegraphed the way she felt through the clothes as she did with Her music.She wasn’t loyal to any house or designer.She had clothes from Detroit, clothes literally off the shelf, and things made to order.

Perhaps more than anything else, Aretha’s defining gift to fashion is her attitude: ‘And I don’t care. [Laughs.] She wore what she wanted, how she wanted, and when she wanted. Take it or leave it. This is Aretha.

She mentioned how Aretha dresses for passion and protection versus style and trend. Is this something you knew before the project?

I don’t really know this is true of course. But it seems to me, from all the research over the decades, that there is a camouflaged spirit in the way they are worn. Firstly, in the photos in which she appeared incredibly hard, she looked very hardworking; There was a lot of psychological engineering that stuck with it. But there were also plenty of photos with another imperfect core – the hair is skewed or her makeup is somewhat smudged. Her humanity always came.

The thing I loved about Aretha was that she didn’t care who I liked or she didn’t like what she was wearing. She got dressed for herself. But she had some real clunkers; Remember Tutu Ballerina?

Yes! [Laughs.] Sometimes the scales will really be off. But it does make you look at how we are trained to watch fashion. How do we define the aesthetics of women. This was a woman, after all, who asked Valentino and Calvin Klein to make clothes a size larger, and this was back in the ’70s, when size variety was unacceptable. She was splintered that way.

Jennifer Hudson and Aretha are two completely different women in terms of size and shape. How did that affect your design process?

It was about the size. Also, a lot of the early conversations Jennifer and I had were about how Aretha walks. She was going for a very rough walk, which I think was about not taking up too much space. We kept talking about it a lot. So for me, when I was installing Jennifer, I was really aware of the specific moments when I was forced to take up a little space versus when I finally decided to take up a lot.

Can you give an example?

Much of her early 1950s outfits were pretty tight—basic and fitted. In the Columbia years, when her dad would sell her and want her to be the Black Judy Garland, her dresses were really restrictive and tight. And as her music and life transformed, she wore looser, bigger clothes and took up more space and volume, with big furs, kaftans, and all that.

Would you agree that a good percentage of Aretha’s fans were unaware that she grew up in an upper-middle-class household, with huge privileges? She was not a poor child.

Yes. I find it fascinating how we have been directed to watch this. When African American divas designs, the media almost wants to model something from poverty to affluence. Beam. Tina. But Aretha’s family were not farmers. What is important, regardless of its economic potential, is that the racial and gender traumas inflicted on it continue to occur. It is very deep. But it feels uniquely deep in a rich world.

Let’s talk about some of the most iconic pieces of the movie. What is the story of the beautiful golden beaded dress?

I wanted a dress that Aretha loved to wear. I saw footage from her concert in Amsterdam, although I couldn’t find her original color and what she was made of. Nobody knows where the original dress is. A vintage merchandise dealer contacted me via Instagram saying, “I have a similar dress [to what] Aretha wore it to her Amsterdam concert, can you use it? It turned out to be a casual dress made of metallic gold and made of ribbons.

For our movie, I wanted it to be more delicate, so I did it with pearls, champagne silk, and a strip of ribbon. It was labor intensive and required a lot of hands. But, thank God, nothing was stopped and the details were perfect because they blew it up with a gigantic size for [film’s] Huge billboard on Sunset Street. When I came to Los Angeles for the premiere, I had to drive to watch it.

I noticed on the famous green feather-striped outfit Aretha wore with Martin Luther King Jr., as well as in her “Amazing Grace” paisley gown, I changed the hot green to aqua. why?

I’m always thinking about how to set things up for the modern eye. And we wanted to help the scene. And you had to be careful because it can be almost cartoonish, Dr. Seuss dress. For me, this lemon green screams ’60s loudly – I just wanted to give them a little more chic and modernity.

The fur was amazing. Was it a classic, faux, did you make it?

They were a mixture of vermouth and foo; I didn’t make any new furs, because I didn’t want to cross that line. I thought it was important to understand the motive behind wearing all her huge and long fur: she was trying to protect herself. It was about a shield. I think the way she handled her fur was in direct proportion to her fear. I mean, who stepped on stage with a long fur like you did at the Kennedy Center Honors? There must be a great power inside of you saying, “Hey guys, I can’t trust these people.” Also, Aretha’s Fur has been winding itself up in this huge success.

You mentioned that your favorite piece is the slip that Aretha wears in the scene where she fights the demons of alcohol. That simple slip spoke volumes. Was it old? where did you find it?

I loved that slip. It was an old piece I found in Atlanta. The scene was difficult and emotional, and Jennifer wore no makeup and no wig. No nothing. For me, what can I give her? The slip was very pale green, not white, and you need to speak weakly. There’s a scene before that didn’t make the movie where she’s wearing this slip, puts on a fur coat, wig and sunglasses and goes to a liquor store. She had so much to do, this slip. This is a great example of costumes that give the actor what he needs to tell the story, and he made that slip.

You started working on the movie even before there was a script, and you and Jennifer worked a lot together. How was she working and cooperating with her?

unbelievable. The best way to describe it is that it is a spiritual experience. I totally understood the mission and that it was not about vanity but about finding Aretha and none of this, “Do I look cool?” She was willing to spend hours and hours and hours working out. There were days when we took seven, eight hours going through things, and there wasn’t a single day I was late. She was very serious about the role, and she gave us the gift of preparation. I was going to be working with Jennifer again in a minute.