The Love Witch - Top Five Fashion Moments
Get The Love Witch Look
Obsessed with retro cult horror The Love Witch? Pay homage to the film’s masterful, vintage-inspired costume design to elevate this year’s Halloween costume over the usual ghosts and gore.
Director Anna Biller created every aspect of the film, from script to set design in a process that took seven years to complete! Inspired by influences as diverse as the Thoth Tarot Deck, Italian Renaissance Fairs, colour symbolism and cults, Biller made all the costumes from vintage patterns and each one tells its own story. Here’s five of our favourites.
The Tea Room
Biller admits she was obsessed with this shade of peach, which was prevalent in the 70s but is virtually impossible to find now. Elaine’s dress was vintage Gunne Sax, and Trish’s costume was a vintage pant suit that was so enormous it had to be entirely remade from the fabric. Biller designed the tearoom as an entirely feminine space ‘like the inside of a womb’ and while Elaine wears peach to fit in, as at this point in the film she is new in town, Trish is differentiated by her more business-like pant suit.
Elaine’s Spell Casting Look
Elaine and the other witches wear a variety of robes over the course of the film, but our favourite is the duck-egg blue number she wears while making potions in her lab. Biller considers blue an occult colour, and we love that Elaine has an identical black version for love spells.
The Tarot-Inspired Sunroom
Yellow shows up several times as a warning for danger in the film. Again, Elaine and Trish wear the same colour in very different styles, symbolising their uneasy alliance. Biller designed Elaine’s sunroom in the colours of the Thoth Tarot Deck, designed by famous occultist Aleister Crowley. And as if you even had to ask, those paintings are Biller’s work as well.
Star and Moon
Fairly peripheral characters, these two deserve a mention thanks to their cult-inspired linen dresses. Sun and Moon are newcomers to the witches circle, and Biller wanted to give them a sense of innocent sacrificial lambs.
The Wedding
The costumes for the surreal Renaissance Fair scene took Biller a full year to make. Elaine and Griff’s ‘wedding’ costumes are inspired by the equally bonkers 1970 french musical Peau d'Âne (Donkey Skin). Biller has stated in interviews that it’s her favourite and most heartfelt scene - “So many people think I am being ironic with this movie, but that scene is pure romance and I have absolutely no irony about it.”
If you’re inspired by The Love Witch’s vintage styling you’re in luck… we’ve created an edit of psychedelic-print 70s maxis, pastel 60s minis and come-hither lingerie so you can get The Love Witch look. Shop The Love Witch edit now.