In Apple TV+’s new action film “Wolfs,” George Clooney and Brad Pitt play two “professional fixers” who, when both are summoned to cover-up a high-profile crime, realize that their unique job isn’t as unique as they thought.
Costume designer Amy Westcott enhanced this dynamic through subtle elements of the film’s wardrobe. Both characters are dressed in a similar outfit — a black leather jacket, gray trousers and black boots — but each have their own distinctive look.
“A lot of the references had to do with tactical references versus just what people wear in the city to assimilate and not stand out,” she said. “There are so many unique characters here in New York that I was keeping an eye on that sort of thing — like what do people wear here? How do people get around? We landed on something that was unique for them, but also one of the things that was funny was that we were trying to keep them similar.”
Throughout the film, Clooney’s and Pitt’s characters are at odds on how to perform their job, increasingly becoming aware that they’re more similar than they thought, which is reflected through their looks.
While the characters’ costumes are practically identical, they vary through subtle details. The leather jackets both have different collars, with Clooney’s offering a more casual look while Pitt’s is a fitted silhouette.
Clooney wears his jacket over a turtleneck, meant to reflect his no-nonsense attitude, according to Westcott, and Pitt wears his with a dress shirt, which is meant to reflect a playful vibe. Westcott stated that both characters wear the same exact black leather shoes with rubber soles, that allow for style and practicality.
“I like that it gave them a little bit of style,” Westcott said about their costumes. “They looked good and fashionable, but yet they looked like they were getting this unique job done. For me, at the end of the day you want them to look fantastic, but to have that thing in common, so they could look at each other and be like ‘I’m not that special,’ which was the joke of the movie.”
Clooney’s and Pitt’s uniform-like costumes are meant to make them assimilate to their surroundings and not stand out, however, there’s a scene in the film where they crash a Croatian wedding as part of their job and stick out with their dark outfits among the party guests all dressed in blush tones.
Westcott explained this was an intentional costume decision to make the characters’ lone wolf persona more apparent when they’re in a large crowd of people.
“We kept it really contained color wise, so it wouldn’t look like just a black and white wedding,” she said. “And then we had to deal with the fact that they had black jackets on, so in a black and white room with a random color palette, they weren’t going to stand out at all. We had this idea to do a very contained palette of rose and peach, all of these colors that were not at all traditional and put them in that, which made them pop out with the dancing and everything.”
Aside from Clooney’s and Pitt’s characters, several of the other film’s characters also stood out for their costumes. As part of their “professional fixer” jobs, both characters bring their client, played by Amy Ryan, a set of clothes to change into during the cover-up job. Instead of opting for one look, she picks and chooses from each to make her own unique look.
The rejects from both outfits are then worn by Austin Abrams’ character, an outfit that includes a women’s floral top and silk trousers.
“We actually worked backward on that,” Westcott said. “So, we got a great look together for Austin that was all women’s clothes and what worked well for that look, so that was a lot of templates and tweaking to get to that place, and then we worked backward in what would go with them that made it look legitimate.”
Overall, Westcott thinks the films’ costumes helped establish Clooney and Pitt’s characters and dynamics both with each other and their surroundings.
“We ended up with a nice looking, more high fashion tactical look that was like they could fit in with the world and not stand out and not look like they didn’t belong,” she said. “So, it really was finding the characters within the world.”
