As the second season of “Loki” begins, the Temporal Loom becomes central to the Time Variance Alliance and the Sacred Timeline is in jeopardy.
Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, the god of mischief, tries to repair the damage. Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) – better known as OB – help him. As they flash back and forth between different time periods, it was up to the show’s costume designer, Christine Wada, to build on the outfits she created for Season 1 and expand the Marvel costume universe.
An important costume was the temporary nuclear suit. In the first episode, Mobius ventures into the malfunctioning Temporal Loom in a nuclear suit. Wada knew the suit should feel dated, as if it came from the 1940s or 1950s. The outfit also had to feel authentic and organic, as if the TVA had built the suit to withstand the harsh conditions. Yet it could not refer to a diving suit, a bomb suit or even a NASA space suit.
So she found a mid-century wetsuit and examined the fabric: “The ribbed groove in the suit came from there.
A happy accident happened when she painted over the latex. “It gave a beautiful effect. We came back a few days later and it changed color. So we found a stabilizer and everything worked out,” Wada notes.
From there she continued to build, starting with an indoor cage, making sure it wasn’t too heavy. Because the suit needed volume, she constructed the armholes with metal rings to support the sleeves, which the actors could remove between takes to cool down.
When it came to the design of the faceplate, she had to take into account the established aesthetics of the TVA as well as a few practical issues, such as the fact that the actors had to see while walking around with the helmet on, and that they needed peripheral vision had. She had tried a rectangular design, but it looked too much like a diving or NASA helmet. Wada ultimately settled on a triangular design. As strange as it was, it had a practical element and “felt like a repeat pattern of the TVA.”
The pale mint color of the suit came from Wada, rooting it in the color palette of OB and the industrial world. He is a technician who lives in the lower parts of the TVA as the head of the Repairs and Advances Department. “It feels a little communistic, but it was great compared to the higher levels of TVA,” says Wada. Overall, when it came to creating anything related to the TVA, she wanted to keep it consistent, so she wasn’t trying to “up my game.”
But she did get the chance to flex her creative muscles for Loki.
In the third episode, the main cast of characters visits the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. It was one of the largest tasks Wada faced as it featured over 300 extras. Photography was key to helping build those costumes.
“A lot of the research was colorized photography, and I wanted to dig deeper into that because that’s how we see that era, in this colorized black-and-white way,” she says.
With that in mind, she put a lot of thought into how the color palette would work. Wada kept the values limited by not using brightly contrasting colors, especially for the main fair visitors. “It kept our main characters Loki, Mobius and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) from looking too out of place,” she explains. This becomes clear in the beer garden scene when they flow seamlessly into each other.
As for the titular character in the series, Wada wanted to reflect his emotions. She says that at the end of the first episode, Loki is in a position where he feels humbled and has achieved his goal.
“It’s a royal purpose, so it was important that he had this organic element of a god and not a warrior version. So there is a nod to the mantle of a king, but there is a modest, almost monk-like aspect to that costume,” Wada adds. “There was a deliberate stripping of all armor.”
Wada wanted to keep his outfit, especially his cape, practical and not enhanced by CG. For the finale, where Loki finally learns how to control time and ascend the throne, his tunic is made of suede with gold dots. His cape was designed with form and functionality in mind, made from dyed wool with quilting on the front and embroidery. These additions added weight to the fabric, which helped create movement in the wind, and Wada was able to keep it completely in-camera without her design being enhanced by visual effects.
With Sylvie, Wada didn’t change her silhouette too much. Sylvie had decided to settle in Oklahoma in 1982 and no longer followed her fate.
Although it doesn’t last long, Wada explains, “I wanted her to be able to move a coat for battle scenes, which reflects the cape effect, but also someone hiding in the world.” You have the feeling that she is carving out a place and a normal life for herself.’
The houndstooth coat she wears had its origins in the ’80s, especially in rockabilly: “It helped her be Sylvie, but gave a nod to the eighties and also carried her through in a timeless way the different eras,” Wada notes.
