Gotham Knights Costume Designer Jennifer May Nickel Breaks Down the Details of Outfitting "Under Pressure" (Exclusive)

By Nicole Drum

Last week on The CW's Gotham Knights, not only did Turner, Duela, Harper, and Cullen find themselves having to deal with a bomb at the Founder's Gala that threatened not only Gotham's elite, but Stephanie Brown as well, but the episode "Under Pressure" offered viewers the best look yet at the full spectrum of have and have-not in the city. While the rich and powerful partied in their beautiful clothes, the Mutant Gang in their grittier attire sought to bring it all down.  It's a visually stunning reflection of the city's dynamics and it's something that is particularly illustrated in the clothing. Series costume designer Jennifer May Nickel recently sat down with ComicBook.com to talk about her work on the series and broke down the wide range of looks that go into the series — especially "Under Pressure".

"It's a huge spectrum. The way I like to think of it and the way I kind of tried to keep myself grounded on it, so we didn't go too crazy because it is so many different facets, was to focus on the wealth and the history. There's a structure to it there, the people who come from money, the core powerful people of Gotham like Mayor Hill, Cressida, all those people. They have a structure and architecture to them. They have a simplicity of lines," Nickel said. "And the sculpture of them feels like a beautiful marble pillar that is austere and commands attention and power and then you get lower and lower, and the sculptures start to get a bit more muddled and there's a little more clay happening in the lines. There are a lot more cracks in the clay and it's a little messier, until you get down to Duela and the Mutant Gang, which is just like a hodgepodge of throwing everything into the concrete to see what sticks and holds it together. So, it's like you've got the bricks and mortar of Gotham and then you have the marble pillars of Gotham and that's kind of where I tried to stylistically keep a straight line going because otherwise it's easy to get lost."

Nickel also explained that, when it came to the Mutant Gang, their jackets were of particular interest. She explained that they took the idea that the jackets had been found in the gutter and then were customized and ran with it, in part because of the way it contrasted with Gotham's high society.

"We had a lot of fun custom making or customizing them. A lot of their stuff was like 'okay, they found this jacket in the actual gutter and patched it up' and since they're going to go battle someone, we put some battle spikes on there as armor," she said. "I let us go off the deep end on that one and it was such a fun dichotomy to be doing all the people at the gala at the same time. They're in these beautiful, pristine gowns and tuxedos and we tried to keep their color palette lighter, like creams and dusty silvers, grays, and lilacs so that when the gang comes in with all of their grit and grime and gross, you can just see the huge difference there. You very clearly know that they are not from the same sides of Gotham."

And when it came to one particular detail with the Mutant Gang, Nickel revealed that she was especially happy with how it ended up working on screen.

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"The one lieutenant, I had him being kind of hyper accessorized with some of his strapping to have a military kind of feel because he's the lieutenant and instead the normal uniform collar to show rank, we have grommets in there," she said. "I was really hoping that since he's going to be wearing it with a popped collar, the grommets would actually show through some of the light as he moved around, and it actually does and so I was very excited."

Gotham Knights airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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