Today's Edition
ESTHER ZUCKERMAN (NEW YORK TIMES)
When costume designer David Crossman, who specialises in military wear, first knew he would be working on “Napoleon” (hitting theatres this week), Ridley Scott’s epic starring Joaquin Phoenix, he had a “mini panic” about the hats.
It was not that he would have trouble recreating Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous headgear, the kind for which collectors pay dearly (one just sold for $2.1 million on Sunday). It was that he would be doing it with certain limitations. Phoenix is vegan and does not wear any animal products, which meant that Crossman could not use wool felt. “Immediately, I just felt it’s going to be a problem of what to make the iconic hat out of because it’s all going to be about the hat,” Crossman said in a video call.
Luckily they found a solution: a fabric constructed from tree bark originating in Uganda, which turned out to have an ideal texture for the task at hand. “I thought, ‘oh good, we’re out of trouble’,” Crossman added. “I was just so worried it was going to be some polyester synthetic thing. But what it actually gave us, as well, was a lot of lovely surface texture on the hat.”
Once Crossman overcame that hurdle, the work could begin. For research, Crossman sought out originals. Phoenix’s hats may have been built from bark cloth, but they were true to size.
Over the course of the film, Phoenix dons a series of bicorns ranging in size and opulence as he goes from upstart officer to famed emperor. There were three key versions for the character reproduced many times over, Crossman said, as well as a glorious array of hats for various generals, allies and enemies. Here, Crossman discusses some key looks.Officer’s HatIn the film, just before Napoleon launches his attack on British forces at Toulon in the South of France in 1793, he turns his hat sideways. Though bicorns were traditionally worn facing forward, Napoleon popularised wearing it in this way. The change comes in a little moment just before a key victory that signifies Napoleon’s evolution as well as his personal style. It was also an acting choice.
“It was a Joaquin decision, because he knew that it had to happen,” Crossman said.
This plain hat is the one he wears as a young, untested officer from Corsica.
“It keeps him out of trouble on the streets of Paris, it’s got a little revolutionary tricolour cockade so you know what side he’s on,” Crossman said.
Although some of Napoleon’s rank would have worn feathers in their hats at this time, Crossman explained that he had decided to keep it simple. General and First Consul HatPerhaps the most outwardly splashy hat Napoleon has is the one he wears during the period of the movie when he is a general – a time that coincides with his meeting and wooing Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby) – as well as when he is First Consul.
But even with this glam headwear, Crossman wanted to signify a man at a low point.
“There was this kind of mid-period where Napoleon, when he meets Joséphine [at the Survivors Ball], he was so down on his luck by then, he was just out of money, so I didn’t want to put him into an embroidered uniform for that,” Crossman said.
He added that he based the uniform on an etching he found. “So I suppose the most ostentatious thing about him in that is his hat, which Joaquin was determined to keep on like all the time.”
Yes, you will notice that Phoenix keeps his head covered often indoors.
“Not for comic effect or some effect, he just liked keeping it on in certain situations inside,” Crossman said.
As Napoleon became more established, his uniform got more elaborate to match the gilded nature of his hat with embroidery.Emperor’s HatBy the time Napoleon is emperor, including the crucial sequence at the Battle of Austerlitz, he wears a large but relatively unadorned bicorn.
“That’s the hat that he loved,” Crossman said. “He’d make a couple of them per year and have them refresh it. He would always have new hats sent out to him.”
Based on Crossman’s research at the museum, he found that following Napoleon’s coronation as emperor, his hats got bigger and bigger as he grew politically stronger.
Assorted Hats Belonging
to Generals and MarshalsWhile Napoleon’s hat stays simple in his days as emperor, the actors playing his generals and marshals, like Ben Miles as Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt, have plumage that is either white or black depending on rank. In addition to feathers, these bicorns also have gold details.
And again, Crossman wanted to make them big.
He said that normally in a production, actors and directors will request that hats be shrunk from their historically accurate proportions to what they think looks more appealing. But that was not the case on “Napoleon”.
“I was expecting more hat issues during filming,” Crossman said, “because vanity comes in. But we didn’t encounter any of that, which was great.”
