Jessica Harper in 'Suspiria'

Dante Argento’s Suspiria, starring Jessica Harper, is one of the best examples of a Mood Film. The film’s sets, lighting, sound design, and outfits are the strongest storytelling aspects. The mood is set through surrealistic neon lights in the night scenes and clean heavily patterned walls in the daytime. The end result is a creepy, but beautiful, story and look. We feel lost in the heavily, stylized world created on screen.

Suzy’s outfits consist of sheer white fabric, black, fully covering leotards, and a child-like innocence. She has grace and elegance as a ballerina which adds to this. Her face absent of makeup and full of youth. The other characters dress more mature. Usually in film these girls get stereotyped as weak, but she becomes our heroine. This follows a movie concept called ‘The final girl theory’, which hypothesizes that innocent girls as the ones to survive, while girls who are more sexual and rebellious are killed off. 

Suspiria has many outfits I’d like to recreate, but for this Halloween costume special, we will focus on one of the earlier ballerina-inspired looks.

Start in first position and let’s recreate this surreal look:

The three key pieces to this look are:

DIY'd White Denim Vest with Sheer Train. Designed by Lelia Jinnah. If you can work a sewing machine, you should take a stab at this DIY. I thrifted a white sleevless vest from Poshmark and we attached a train of sheer fabric around the bottom of the vest. Altering thrifted clothing is a surefire way to make the most out of a piece. After having something altered, you will be shocked at how perfect it fits your body. 

Black Catsuit. Thrifted online via Poshmark. This Topshop hand-me down tightly covers your full body like Suzy's. Worn under the vest it creates a slimming, flowy effect you can spin around like Stevie Nicks in. Look online searching keywords like "black catsuit" or "black full leotard".

Lace-Up Faux Ballet Shoes. Purchased in a $5 dollar shoe store next to my Brooklyn abode. They were a $15 well spent. They are knock off Jeffery Campbell's. I would check ebay for either real Jeff Campbells or knock offs like these. 

Gels. One of the best things to have as a photographer. Putting them over lights creates a cool effect, intensifying as you layer the plastic, colored sheets. Shooting through them also gets some interesting results (as seen below). 

My Recreation: 

photo cred: Jesse Jan Driessen

The Breakdown:

Vest: Poshmark & DIY train by Lelia Jinnah

Catsuit: Poshmark

Shoes: $5 shoe store on my block

Let's get spooky.