Hand carved wooden buttons, a hat with the perfect amount of crease, a tie of just the right width—every visual detail in a great film or show adds to the creation of a world, and Janie Bryant knows how clothing can tell a story.
“Reading the script is like reading a great novel. … A script is like my road map to understanding the character, which leads my imagination, and the costume,” said Bryant, an Emmy award-winning costume designer whose career has been filled with era-defining drama series. The latest, screenwriter-director Taylor Sheridan’s “1923,” is set in a time of contrasts, when “chic” fashion and haute couture found its roots. It’s also a world where different cultures often clashed.
“There’s these worlds with restrictions and boundaries, and then the other side of it is freedom and letting loose and going wild,” said Bryant, who worked on both prequels to the hit “Yellowstone” TV series, “1883” and “1923.”
Scarlett, My Icon
Classic films have served as an inspiration throughout Bryant’s life. As a child, the Tennessee native would watch “Gone With the Wind,” “Wuthering Heights,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Guys and Dolls” regularly with her family, and she still revisits these favorites frequently.
“I mean, Walter Plunkett, he’s probably my favorite costume designer,” said Bryant. Plunkett worked on no fewer than 150 projects during his Hollywood career, including Scarlett O’Hara’s iconic dresses from “Gone With the Wind” which so inspired Bryant as a child. Initially, though, she had no idea this was a career option; Bryant pursued fashion design and went to Paris, then New York, before serendipitously meeting a costume designer and learning about what she did.
