Tina Kakadelis
When it comes to the end of the world, clothes likely aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yet the right clothes are as essential as any weapon when you’re outrunning hordes of infected in Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us. Just ask costume designer Ann Foley.
Based on the wildly popular video game franchise of the same name, The Last of Us follows Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal), a mismatched pair, at the end of the world. Earth has been overrun by a fungal infection of mutated Cordyceps that has led to the downfall of society. The beginning of Season 2 sees Ellie and Joel settled, for the time being, in Jackson, Wyoming, where what’s left of humanity has built a small, self-sufficient town.
Foley joined The Last of Us in its second season, taking the helm from Cynthia Ann Summers, who worked on the first season. While preparing to pitch her concepts to HBO, Foley came as close as one could to playing the video game without actually picking up the controller.
“I did watch a very long ten-hour playthrough,” Foley laughs. “I felt like I was playing it, if that counts. It was intense and it was great because I really felt like I was in it.”
When interviewed for her work on Season 1, Summers found it to be more difficult than other period pieces or fantasy projects she’d worked on in the past. Like Summers, Foley has worked in fantastical realms. Her previous credits include Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Altered Carbon, all of which have sci-fi elements to them. The unexpected difficulty that comes from designing the look of The Last of Us is something the two costume designers wholeheartedly agree on.
“Cynthia is 100% right, mainly because we really wanted this to be grounded,” Foley explains. “It was incredibly important to Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann that this feels like real life so the audience has a visceral reaction to what they’re watching.”
She continues, “For example, the stalker that we saw in Episode 1, she was wearing a Gap blouse. It was a mom blouse. It was something I would have given to my mother for Mother’s Day. That made it scarier in a weird way, because you could relate to it, and that’s basically what Craig and Neil were looking for in this.”
In the world of The Last of Us, life as the characters knew it ended in the early 2000s. This means fashion also ended at that time, so Foley and her team wanted all of the characters to have a “a late ’90s, early 2000s vibe.”
“They’re finding clothes from all over the place and clothes are precious. Everything is taken care of, everything is lovingly washed and carefully mended so it lasts longer,” Foley explains. “Everything was really aged down. Not one stitch of clothing that went on camera did not go through my aging and breakdown department. It was all carefully broken down to look like these people have been taking very good care of their things.”
While the majority of characters have a more muted color palette in their clothing choices, Dina (Isabela Merced) is a pop of color in Ellie’s world, literally and figuratively. Much of Season 2 focuses on the relationship that develops between the two characters. A small bright light in this weary world.
“Dina, as a person and a character, is so full of life and effervescence,” Foley says. “I was immediately drawn to Dina’s rainbow jacket because it had a really great sort of late-’90s vibe to it. There’s more color in Dina’s costumes this season.”
Dina’s jacket comes from a contemporary company, Aviator Nation, so Foley and her team had to make it look retro and as though it had lived through an infected nightmare.
It took “a lot of paint, a lot of sanding ,and just going in with different tools and different chemicals,” Foley says. “We needed to make it look like it’s 20 years old, but in a loving way. Weeks of work went into aging those jackets down without destroying them.”
Every aspect of costume design is a delicate process. A lot of technical training goes into these designs, but Foley explains that she also relies on her gut intuition. A great example of this intuition is Ellie’s green jacket when the show shifts its setting to Seattle. Foley had many conversations with Mazin and Druckmann about the exact shade of green this built-in-house jacket needed to be.
“I brought Ksenia Sereda, our fantastic DP for that episode, two or three versions of the jacket,” explains Foley. “We looked at the green and then we took it outside to look at it in the sunlight and make sure it was going to be beautiful in the forest. I don’t want Ellie disappearing completely and standing out just a little bit, but it was a really nice contrast to Dina’s jacket.”
As the episodes are released, Foley updates her Instagram with behind-the-scenes pictures of costume fittings and fun facts about the process. In the comments of these posts, you’ll see fans asking for information about where they can buy clothes to dress up like characters on the show. Since the video game’s release, fans have been cosplaying as the characters, and Foley is thrilled to see people so engaged with her work.
“It’s been amazing,” Foley gushes. “I’ve never worked with a breakdown team this talented in my life. I want the fans to be able to see the close-ups of the stalkers and the clickers. What you just saw in episode 205 last night, the whole room that was wall-to-wall cordyceps. I loved sharing that. I love the cosplayers going back to my Marvel days, and I will always repost anything that they send me because I think their work is incredible.”
With two more episodes on the way in The Last of Us Season 2, Foley has a few more exciting looks up her sleeve. “For fans of the game, I can’t really say too much, but there’s something coming up in episode 206 that I think everyone’s going to love. I have favorite things in every single episode. I really do.”
“I think one of the things I’m the most proud about is Ellie’s transformation this season from a 14-year-old to a 19-year-old, and seeing how Bella manifested that progression as well is really something that’s quite remarkable,” Foley continues. “I’m so proud of that and I’m so thrilled I got to collaborate with them on this season and help Bella find Ellie through the costume.”
One of the ways Bella and Foley collaborated on Ellie’s character through costume was a pair of Converse shoes. They’re a small part of Ellie’s wardrobe that won’t get much up-close screen time on the shoe, but Foley believes they were deeply essential to Ellie as a character. Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that have the biggest impacts.
“That’s probably one of my favorite moments of the season because I just let Bella go for it,” Foley smiles. “Whatever they wanted to do, I was like, let’s do it. I didn’t ask questions. I just knew when I saw the final product that it was 100% correct. Thankfully, Craig Mazin loved the idea as well and was really on board. You might not see it a lot throughout the season, but we know that it’s there. Bella knew that it was there. That makes all the difference.”
