‘Mulan’ Production Designer Reveals Thought Process

The live-action film “Mulan” will be released Friday, September 4th, 2020. This will be exclusively on Disney Plus for an additional 30 dollars. However, some fan favorites won’t be in the musical. The fiery dragon Mushu and insect companion Cri-Kee will not be in the film.

They also removed some of the songs, like “I’ll Make a Man of You”. To some, it seems like a big loss, but to Costume Designer Bina Daigeler it was an opportunity. “You can be more creative in live-action with regards to costume design, and you can bring in so much more richness,” stated Daigeler to Vox back in February.

Many kids grew up with Mulan being an inspiration to young girls showing that they can do anything that men can do. That is what Daigeler wanted to show during the creation of the film.

Daigeler studied the many iterations of clothing designs across Chinese history, and when asked to give an example of one of her signature outfits she refers to Mulan’s matchmaking outfit.

During the time of research, Daigeler peeked in interest in wrap dresses. This she mainly represented in the matchmaking outfits. She stated, “I wanted the matchmaking costume to show her beautiful body shape and be very feminine, compared to her other outfits.”.

Fashion Blogger Gong Pan Pan explained that most of the red outfits shown in the film are not specified to a specific time period of Chinese history. It was due to the fact that red was an easy color to make dye with. Meaning that it was more than likely that soldiers like Mulan would wear that color.  So despite the fact that Disney likely gave her artistic range to interpret how the costumes should be, proper representation is something to look forward too in this upcoming film. 

Written By Trinity Simmons-Brooks

Edited by Sheena Robertson

Source:

Vox: Mulan’s costumes are bright, dramatic, and (mostly) historically accurate

Featured Image Courtesy of Daryl DeHart’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License

Inline Image Courtesy of Martín Justicia’s  Flickr Page – Creative Commons License