Thinking outside the box
Costume designer Maja Meschede opens up about her work bringing Victorian London to life for Disney+ period drama A Thousand Blows, which saw her partner with actors Malachi Kirby, Erin Doherty and Stephen Graham for this epic saga set in the world of illegal boxing.
With credits on series such as Catherine the Great and films including Fury and Downton Abbey: A New Era, it’s no surprise to learn that costume designer Maja Meschede has a love of history and an eye for projects that allow her to turn detective by digging into the past.
“I’m very interested in the evolution of our perception of beauty, and what is beautiful throughout the centuries,” she tells DQ. “I’m just really curious about people, very interested in people and finding out about their stories. Some of that then relates really well to what these people wear – why would they wear this, where does that come from? –and what’s in their mind. The psychological aspect is a big one for me.”
Meschede most recently completed work on the BBC and Stan’s upcoming adaptation of Lord of the Flies, Jack Thorne (Adolescence)’s take on William Golding’s classic novel. She joined the project as co-costume designer to partner with Marianne Agertoft, spending six months on location in Malaysia overseeing the tailoring of school uniforms, choir uniforms and other clothing with a local team of costumers. Wool and other fabrics had to be shipped to South-East Asia for the project, which is set in 1953.
But it’s another series, one that recently launched on Disney+, that transported Meschede back in time to 1880s Victorian London, where she teamed up with writer Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and actors Malachi Kirby, Erin Doherty and Stephen Graham.
A Thousand Blows stars Kirby as Hezekiah Moscow, who together with best friend Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall) arrives from Jamaica and finds himself thrust into the criminal underbelly of London’s thriving bare-knuckle boxing scene. As Hezekiah finds fortune and fame through the art of pugilism, he attracts the attention of the infamous Queen of the Forty Elephants, Mary Carr (Doherty), who sets about exploiting his talents to further her criminal enterprise.
Meanwhile, the menacing and self-declared emperor of the East End boxing world, Sugar Goodson (Graham), determines to destroy Hezekiah, whose ambition to fight in the West End threatens everything he has built.
When she considers her next projects, Meschede has to like the script and work out whether the project is “my cup of tea.” “But it’s more like instinct,” she says. With A Thousand Blows, she was immediately interested in shining a light on Hezekiah’s story as a fish-out-of-water character in London at that time.
“He arrives first trying to be a lion tamer, and then his boxing talent is obvious and he becomes very successful,” the designer explains. “It’s really wonderful to be part of telling the story. And also, I was intrigued by the Forty Elephants, the ladies, because women in Victorian times were oppressed, they were stay-at-home mothers and far away from emancipation. These ladies symbolise emancipation. They were bold, they were brave, rebellious. I thought, ‘Gosh, I really want to be part of this.’ And here I am.”
When it comes to the fashion of the era, Victorian London is usually associated with dark clothing that reflects the dirt and grime of the city at a time of huge wealth and social divisions amid the ongoing Industrial Revolution. But Meschede wanted to bring some colour to the series, and particularly the female characters, as the story swirls between London’s poor East End and wealthy West End.
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That process started with a lot of historical research, ensuring authenticity was at the heart of every design decision. It included recreating the specific silhouettes women created using corsets. “The small waist was enhanced, and there was this beautiful hourglass shape,” she says.
For men, fashion usually amounted to a suit. And if you were poor, whatever you wore would likely be made up of hand-me-down pieces.
“You were lucky to have a skirt and maybe a petticoat to keep you warm, or maybe a shawl to wrap over your shoulders,” Meschede notes. “You didn’t have much if you were poor. And then if you belonged to the West End crowd, the high society, you had people making your clothes and you wouldn’t be seen in a dress or suit maybe twice, because you were showing off your worth that way. Maybe the gentlemen kept their suits, but there was a new shirt or cravat or jewellery.”
A Thousand Blows opens as Hezekiah and Alec are newly arrived in London, their sand-coloured blazers standing out in a crowd of black overcoats and top hats. The heightened contrast in colours was all part of Meschede’s plan to make Hezekiah look out of place: “It reminds us of a Jamaican beach painting in the sandy colour of his coat and the blue of the sea and the sky for this shirt. I wanted Jamaican colours to be reflected in his clothes.
“They’re off a boat and here they are in linen and cotton arriving in early spring, but it’s cold and really humid and damp in London. They’re arriving in very thin clothing and with a straw hat, which protects you from the sun, but you wouldn’t really need that in London.”
The Elephants, led by Doherty’s Mary, also stand out through their bright costumes, reflecting their rebelliousness and energy. “In high society, when they had candlelit dinners or events, women did wear really bright dresses and bodices,” Meschede says. “You wouldn’t think so, because we think of [that time through] muddy colours, earthy colours. It was really nice to give this touch to the Elephant ladies.”
Through pre-production and filming, Meschede worked closely with lead actors Kirby, Doherty and Graham, as well as members of the Forty Elephants, to design their costumes, with their characters going on an “evolution” through season one – and the already filmed second season.
Early meetings with Doherty and Graham focused on the types of fabrics and colours that worked best for them, and both actors brought their own ideas about their characters. “Stephen and I had a wonderful first meeting where we did discuss how he perceived his character and how he wanted Sugar to be – quite grounded, quite earthy, really down to earth, no vanity,” the designer explains. “It was the same with Erin. She was very clear about how she wanted Mary to be presented. When you establish a good relationship, actors trust you, and that’s always really nice.
“I’m a designer who listens to an actor’s needs. I would never impose a costume on someone if it’s really uncomfortable or they hate the colour. There has to be a harmony, and you can only achieve that by working together and establishing a good work relationship. You just want to make them happy and comfortable, so they don’t think about the costume. They’re in it, they’re the character and all the costumes support what they’re expressing. If I get that right, I’m happy.”
Series creator Knight, who based the series on the stories of real people from the era, also offered some hints at his thoughts on costumes through character descriptions in the scripts. But when it came to production, “he really stepped back. He gave us a lot of freedom,” Meschede says. “It was just wonderful – and once people trust each other, it’s fine. It just flows, and we all communicated really well.”
In fact, Meschede describes A Thousand Blows as one of her favourite projects ever –something she attributes to the collaborative and harmonious atmosphere on set fostered by executive producers Graham and Hannah Walters, who also stars in the series as Eliza Moody, one of the Forty Elephants. The husband-and-wife team’s Matriarch Productions produces the series alongside The Story Collective and Water & Power Productions.
“Stephen said he and Hannah wanted people to be skipping to work, and we were always skipping to work,” she says. “Of course, it was really tough because we’re doing a TV series, it’s period and there’s never enough time. But me and my team were looking forward to every day, which is really nice. It’s a great example for future productions to look after everyone.”
Meschede’s costume team included a growing number of tailors and seamstresses who took over three huge workrooms in order to make each costume for members of the principal cast from scratch. Antique dresses were acquired from fashion and costume houses in France, Italy and the UK, while shoemakers from Canada were also employed on the production.
There was also a hat maker, while each morning Meschede would enter the two enormous crowd tents and check every costume before the day’s shooting would begin. “I’m controlling in that way,” she admits. “I give my team a lot of freedom, but I have to check everything, of course, so it’s all in harmony and nothing stands out too much that shouldn’t.”
By the end of production, the costume department was a well-oiled machine that dressed up to 40 main speaking characters and a further 1,500 supporting artists, all with different looks.
One of Meschede’s biggest challenges on the show came near the start, when the casting process and scheduling conspired against her. Filming in the Dominican Republic for scenes set in Jamaica clashed with Doherty’s arrival and that of other Forty Elephant actors to the project, just a couple of weeks before they would start shooting themselves.
“If you look at the schedule, they’re not just wearing one dress. They were wearing an array of dresses, and there is a very specific, defining look for each character,” Meschede says. “That was a lot of pressure. I still remember that. There was a lot of pressure on me and my team to get it right. If there’s no time and you’re far away, it’s insane.”
The first fitting with Doherty, testing colours and fabrics, took place without Meschede, who checked in on Zoom as filming progressed in the Dominican Republic. Then when she returned to the UK, she headed straight to meet the actor from the airport. “So that was very challenging,” she remembers. “But once every actor is there and you’ve started your conversations, it just starts to flow. Then it’s wonderful.”
But whether it’s A Thousand Blows or partnering with Helen Mirren for Sky’s Catherine the Great, working as a costume designer in television “is so fast, you have to be on the ball and make decisions every day,” Meschede says. “It’s a day full of decision-making where your team needs answers to keep everything going and not delay anything.”
That period drama in particular remains extremely popular among viewers means there is always a demand for shows from the genre – and for costume designers to help bring these stories to the screen. “People just love it and enjoy it,” she adds. “It’s a bit of dreaming. It takes you away from life and what’s going on politically out there, which is quite depressing. There’s a high demand to get people dreaming and take us away from life. It’s a good thing. That’s what we’re here for.”
With A Thousand Blows now streaming on Disney+, Meschede would love to dip into a medieval project in the future “with shaved hairlines and pointy hats.” She also almost worked on a job about the childhood of Cleopatra. “Sadly it folded,” she says. “That would have been a feast, all the history and creating these spectacular costumes. Maybe another day.”
tagged in: A Thousand Blows, Disney, Maja Meschede, Matriarch Productions, The Story Collective, Water & Power Productions