The Dark Knight Rises Costume Designer Talks About Bane and Batman


You wouldn’t usually expect GQ Magazine to have the latest scoop about films, no less a comic book flick like The Dark Knight Rises, but they’ve proven us all wrong in their latest issue. Sitting down with TDKR‘s costume designer Lindy Hemming, they had a chance to ask her about the bizarre (some would say goofy) costumes for Bane and his cohorts. I’ve never been one to judge a movie before I’ve seen it… Ok, that’s a blatant lie, I judge everything harshly and with any little amount of evidence I can find. But hey, that’s why I’m one of the resident Contrarian Fanboys!

What was I saying again? Oh, yes, the costumes!!! Lindy explained her inspiration for the very ‘guerrilla’ garb that Bane sports in the trailers and official photos…

“Bane was meant to look like a cross between a dictator and a revolutionary,” Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming told us. “I designed the coat myself – it took a year. We took inspiration from a Swedish army jacket and a French Revolution frock coat and amalgamated the two. It was a pain to have made, because in LA shearling is not their sort of thing: there weren’t the tailors who could work with the fabric. It’s funny: as soon as it was finished, GQ did a feature about shearling coats, so it looked like I had copied you!”

And she goes on to talk a little about Batman, too…

“Christian Bale was in Armani in the last film and I used Armani again for character reasons. Bruce Wayne is himself playing a part: that of a wealthy man who owns an enormous company and so a luxury brand like Armani seemed the right choice,” says Hemming. As for the bat suit: “There’s very few changes. The only modifications are to do with the story. But I can’t tell you what they are…” As if we didn’t have enough questions already.

I’m not too sure about her decision to go with Armani. If I was one of the world’s richest men, I really wouldn’t have anyone to impress any more, would I?  So I think I’d just go around in my boxers and a bath robe.  If I was feeling fancy, maybe I’d even wear a white shirt underneath it, but it’d be stained with orange streaks of Cheetos fingerprints… evidence to my debauchery.

Hey, but that’s just me!