Agatha All Along Costume Designer Shares New Looks

Agatha All Along is finally here and Marvel’s new coven of witches is making quite the impression. Daniel Selon was in charge of making the costumes for Kathryn Hahn’s descent into spooky season. At Agatha All Along‘s fan premiere event, ComicBook had the chance to talk with the costume designer about his approach to each of these iconic witches. Selon previously worked on WandaVision as an assistant costume designer. So, he’s been to Westview before. A couple of these characters are also making a fun return. But, a lot of these folks will be seen in the MCU for the first time. It’s important to make a grand impression. Fans will notice that their costumes help inform who they are from the word go.

In order to travel The Witches Road, you have to bring a coven. So, Hahn’s Marvel fan favorite must recruit some magic users from all kinds of different walks of life to complete this quest. Joining Agatha Harkness on The Witches’ Road are Aubrey Plaza as Rio Vidal, Patti LuPone as Lilia Calderu, Debra Jo Rupp as Mrs. Hart (but don’t call her that!), Sasheer Zamata as Jennifer Kale, Ali Ahn as Alice Wu-Gulliver, and Joe Locke as “Teen.” Let’s dive right in with the legend herself Patti LuPone!

Lilia Calderu – Divination Worn On Her Sleeve

Ms. Calderu is one of the oldest witches living. So, she’s seen some stuff. In this case, quite literally as her powers center around divination. Fans meet her in Episode 2 of the Disney+ series doing tarot readings and just scraping by. Selon wanted to pay tribute to her legacy, and the legendary actress playing the character, with her design. It’s an heirloom vibe that commands respect among this crop of witches.

“We designed this with Lilia Calderu in mind. Thinking that she was one of the oldest witches,” Selon said. “I really wanted her to have a garment that felt like it was from another time, something that maybe had been passed down to her from her elders who were also witches that had gifts of intuition and divination.”

“And so I loved thinking that this garment was something that was a protective garment and had some of her story on it,” he continued. “So, we created a deck of tarot cards and made art that then became the little embroidered vignettes that are all along the collar. We actually made our own cards! Because, everything has to be custom, everything has to be unique. You know, we have to serve Ms. LuPone. So, we created this concept of her.”

“There was a duality to her experience. She’s both present and she’s also absent,” Selon elaborated. “There was this two headed tortoise. A sort of epically old creature that is sort of a new version of the snake eating its own tail, right? And here you have this women above and below passing the knowledge of water, sort of passing concept, passing history to each other through these vases and they are pouring into each other.” 

Jennifer Kale – Potions Master & Keeper Of Woo

“Jennifer Kale is a potions witch and she’s a modern girl. She’s living in the, the sort of “Goop-space,” if you will. And, we wanted to have something that felt very feminine, very pretty. You know, there’s something aspirational about her. You want to hate her, you want to be her,” Selon joked. “We put all of the elements that she uses in potions and are also in her Kale Care product line. We made art and then we foiled it onto this fabric that we dyed. All the pieces of what she uses for potions and also her identity as a bound, which is here, literally bound on the fabric.” 

He added, “We wanted her to feel almost ill-prepared. She’s a little prissy, you know? And, she just doesn’t like to get dirty. But, she will, and she does. It pays off even more when you see this beautiful pink ensemble destroyed by mud.”

Alice Wu-Gulliver – Blood Witch & Protections Expert

“She is a blood witch. She is the daughter of a famous witch rock goddess. We like to think of her early life of being a kid, sort of dragged on the road, of being a groupie. There’s a little bit of rock and roll here,” Selon mentioned of her past. “Also, she’s a protection witch!  In this instance, we wanted it to be that she was protecting herself. There is an armoring here in a lot of the shape language. I wanted the pants to feel sort of steely and like they were impenetrable.”

“She has this quality to her that is a little off putting, she’s a little rough, she’s a little closed off. I took the color way from a poison dart frog in the Amazon,” the designer revealed. “They have these bright colors that project to the rest of the animal kingdom like, ‘Hey, don’t eat me. I’m poisonous.’ It also stems from her tortured family, generational trauma of like ‘I am damaged goods.’ So, we wanted that to be subtly, and sort of subconsciously, represented here in the costume.” 

Ms. Hart – Please Call Her Sharon

“It was so fun to revisit this character, with Debra Jo Rupp. She is the best. I could just eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with Debra Jo Rupp every day. It was important for us to understand that she has a green thumb,” Selon mused. “She has this incredible garden, and that’s where we first find her. She’s probably showing her prize Begonias at the State Fair. We wanted that to be present here, that she really celebrates her flower identity. But, she’s also got her apron on. She’s actually doing the work, she’s digging around in the garden.”

Rio Vidal – THE Green Witch  

“She is the green witch, and it was really important to draw from nature, to sort of bring about the inspiration for her costume. When you look closely, you’ll actually see there’s a lot of depth. We were looking for fabrics that were, you know, almost as thin as onion skin,” Selon said pointing to the green layer. “So, you can see the layers of different foils and netting, and things that we put in layers to create the concept of a living garment. We hand dyed it. Every single thing is created by hand. Every color is controlled with hand dye and the entire garment is stitched by hand.” 

“Teen” – A Question Of Identity

“His entire existence is cloaked in a bit of mystery. That was important to support without giving things away. I would say that he is on a journey of identity, as is the audience. We’re trying to figure out who this guy is. And at the same time, he’s figuring out who he is,” Selon specified. “So, it was important to create garments where I liked the back story. Maybe, he got into knitting, and he knitted his own sweater when he was starting to get into the occult. Then, he added the symbols and the runes. He’s bored in school, so he’s doodling on his jeans like teenagers too.”

Agatha Harkness – The Star Of The Show

Selon began, “Well, it was really important to take the color story that we established in Wandavision and develop it. To take it a step further and bring her into the real world, because we needed to see her as an approachable human who’s a member of society. We brought a lot of the details and the sort of magic is in the details of the tailoring.”

“So, it’s the kind of garment that you’ll want to look very closely at the way it hangs, the way it drapes, and the way it moves when Kathryn wears it. There is magic, and some details inspired by the way that the collar and the lapel come together,” the designer pointed out. “The way that the pleats in the back of the skirt all align and nest into each other like feathers, and actually created an entire language of runes that are on the inside of the coat. So, the entire lining tells a story. We created these talismans that are printed on the interior of her entire coat that tells her journey.” 

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