Sorry, cosplayers, if you’re looking for where to buy Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad robe from “One Battle After Another,” you’re going to have a hard time finding it.
The film’s costume designer, Colleen Atwood, confirms it was made from old fabric. “I found some vintage-looking fabric and made the multiples I needed for the robe,” she tells Variety.
In the Paul Thomas Anderson film, out this weekend, DiCaprio plays Bob, a revolutionary turned stoner dad who is hanging around his house and has to quickly leave to go in search of his teenage daughter Willa, played by Chase Infiniti.
Originally, the idea was that Bob was going to be wearing a sweatshirt. But Atwood says, “I don’t know if it’s Paul or Leo who said, ‘What if he’s just in his robe?’” And so Bob, recalling Jeff Bridges’ dazed character in “The Big Lebowski,” spends a good chunk of the movie in his robe.
At the film’s premiere, DiCaprio described his character as a guy “that sits home and smokes pot all the time,” and said he “took a lot of inspiration” from Bridges’ performance as The Dude.
The plaid robe itself was made from a cotton-wool blend. “It’s an old, cheap dad robe. It’s a comfortable and cozy robe. And we aged the fabric a lot.”
And so, finding the costume for him became a fluid process, with the sunglasses and hat coming into the mix.
Bob’s sneakers also needed to be considered.
“A lot of stuff, Leo did it himself. So we had to protect him from the world,” Atwood explains. “Somebody told him about these sneakers that are popular with runners and so we dialled into that brand.” Apparently Leo likes a wide toe box, because he ended up wearing Altra Lone Peak trail runners with the orange sole. “Those are great because we got them filthy, but you’ll see a bit of the orange showing.”
For those who wish to dress as Bob this Halloween in a robe just like his, Atwood jokes, “A nice Goodwill shop will do the job.”
Elsewhere, Willa’s ensemble at the dance with the petticoat dress was inspired by something Anderson had seen. “Before Chase was even cast, and a twinkle in Paul’s eye, we did camera tests with different dresses,” says Atwood. She had ideas in mind, but when Anderson and the film’s production designer, Florencia Martin, went to Eureka High School, the director saw a young girl in an old petticoat skirt. Atwood says, “Paul goes, ‘I really liked it.’ So, I made it in a faded, dirty pink at first.”
However, once Atwood looked at the environment and where the character was emotionally, pink seemed more vulnerable, so Atwood switched it to blue. “It was a better color, and with the jacket, in our world, it seemed more low-key.”
Benicio del Toro’s Sensei Sergio runs a karate dojo where Willa trains. In finding his look, Atwood went to Del Toro’s house for a fitting and took a rack of options for him, including a white karategi. An initial idea was that he would wear that with a zip-up jacket from Puma. “But it made no sense having him in a full white outfit being chased around,” Atwood says. “Anyone in their right mind would have taken the top off so people couldn’t identify him.”
In the film, he’s at the dojo relaxing after work. So, Atwood collaborated with Jimmy McBride, a custom denim designer. “He had this jacket that I knew about, but it was too fancy. So, we took the lines of it and made it basic,” she says. McBride stripped the jacket down to a chainstitch-embroidered jean jacket that fit the Sensei’s vibe.
To complete the look, Atwood put him in cowboy boots that she had found in New Mexico. “I had [them] made in his size.” She adds, “They’re a cross between an early ‘Rebel Without a Cause’-kind of boot and a cowboy boot leaning into the West.”
