Daniel Day-Lewis Picked His Wardrobe Daily On 'Phantom Thread,' Says Mark Bridges

Los Angeles-- Being a costume designer on a movie set can be hard work, with the pieces designed and selected for characters to wear serving as one of the most visual elements of a film. However, for Oscar winner Mark Bridges, working on "Phantom Thread" provided a different challenge, one which certainly paid off.

Following his win for best costume design during the 90th Annual Academy Awards, Bridges told reporters in the Oscars press room that the film's star, Daniel Day-Lewis, actually had a hands-on role when it came to selecting the costumes his character wore, and even chose which outfits he would wear each day when he arrived on the set.

"Well, you know, Daniel did an amazing amount of homework. He's the consummate artist preparing," Bridges said.

"Collaborating with him, you know, he had a lot of ideas about what this man should be like. You know, his idea was to go to Anderson Sheppard, Savile Row, to have his clothes tailored, and he knows this world very well. He grew up with it. His father had bespoke clothes, his grandfather. So it was ‑‑ it was a learning experience for me, but we worked together. We went shopping together, actually, on German Street in London, which was amazing. And ‑‑ but I was always there and collaborating about, like, I know I need this many suits to be able to make this costume plot. But he did not want to plan ahead what he was going to wear, so we created a closet for him, and Paul wanted him to choose daily what he would pull from his closet and wear it."

"So that was ‑‑ that was a new one on me, a little nerve‑wracking at first," he continued. "But we all trust each other so much at this point that ‑‑ and the fact that I had been in on creating that wardrobe, I was fine with it. And I think as long as Paul felt we were feeding Daniel nourishment for his character, it was fine, and that's why I'm there too, to help aid that performance."

Bridges also discussed how there was a little bit of pressure while working on the film because he wanted to make sure he did it justice, though he admitted working with Day-Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson, with whom he's collaborated on numerous projects over 22 years, helped elevate his work.

"But, you know, you feel like there's ‑‑ there is a little bit of a pressure. You know, will I be able to do justice to the era, and, of course, working with Daniel, you up your game. And Paul always ‑‑ and Daniel ‑‑ always makes me be a better designer," he said.

In addition, he admitted that there was also a different mindset he had to get into when designing for this particular film, because there were two different levels to the story that he needed to address.

It was ‑‑ it was a little different than I usually do, and it was kind of two levels," he said. "One of it is: Tell the story of the real people. And then when we had to do a fashion show or the fashions of Reynolds Woodcock, I had to go into another mindset of, you know, what would this man be like? Paul said, Oh, can we have a spring fashion show? Can the fashion show be spring? And I'm thinking, like, hmm, a dark character, like Reynolds in London, who uses rich colors and sort of dark fabrics. What would a spring collection be for him? So I had to get into the mindset of somebody else. It was ‑‑ it was different and challenging, in a cool way, for me."

The win marked the second overall for Bridges in his career. He won his first Oscar for costume design for "The Artist" in 2012.