A subtlety in costuming is ‘The Queen’s’ rule

CONSOLATA BOYLE, the costume designer of “The Queen,” is so exacting about detail that she engaged weavers in Scotland to create just the right nubby tweeds for Miramax’s film about Britain’s royal family. So perhaps her ultimate yardstick for success comes as something of a surprise -- Boyle is hoping audiences don’t notice her work.

“We had to carry [moviegoers] with us so they forgot to look for flaws” in the costuming, the Dublin-based Emmy winner for 2004’s remake of “The Lion in Winter” said during a recent swing through Los Angeles. “That week is burnt into people’s memories. Our ambition was to reflect the U.K. back at itself and not have people thinking, ‘Did it look like that?’ and not watch the story.”

Not an easy task when the events dissected in the film -- Queen Elizabeth II’s struggle with Prime Minister Tony Blair over her restrained response to Princess Diana’s death in 1997 -- are recent enough to resonate still. Even trickier was dressing the cast for re-created scenes that had to intercut seamlessly with archival footage. But the designer didn’t want to simply copy the royals’ actual outfits throughout the film.

“I made a deliberate decision that we wouldn’t do an impersonation of the queen,” said Boyle, whose credits include “Angela’s Ashes” and “The Secret of Roan Inish.” “It’s easy to tip into caricature if you’re trying to replicate reality.”

Much of the movie is set in places the media can’t document anyway -- the royal family’s private quarters at Balmoral and Buckingham Palace. For those scenes, Boyle deliberately strayed from her understanding of their customary dress drawn from photos, footage and interviews with former palace staff. In one respect, she had no choice. Outsiders are forbidden to wear the family tartan, known as Balmoral plaid, so Boyle substituted the one worn by the Moffat clan because it’s close to the royals’ gray and red pattern.

But she also opted against the queen’s usual attire for public appearances: bright colors and complicated patterns that enable her subjects to see her from a distance. To help tell the story and illuminate the character of the queen, played by Helen Mirren, Boyle designed simple outfits in cooler shades of royal purple for her private meetings with Blair.

“Those purples provided a feeling of her royal power and her position of authority over Blair, which was reestablished when he visits her at the end,” she said.

For the queen’s country life on the grounds of Balmoral, Boyle dressed Mirren in Hermes head scarves depicting hunting themes as well as simple tops, twin sets and skirts in earth tones. “In reality, Elizabeth would wear slightly more garish colors and checks,” Boyle said. “I made the decision to create that dreamy feel of the safety of Balmoral and a womblike feeling by keeping the colors soft and not using strong blasts of color.”

Even the clunky but sturdy Crockett & Jones walking shoes Mirren wore to stride across the countryside helped the filmmakers tell the story -- one person’s dowdy dowager is another’s paragon of practicality who’s above vanity. And it was Boyle’s uncompromising approach to costume design that prompted director Stephen Frears to make this film his fourth collaboration with her.

“On each film we have done together, she’s been very, very precise and delicate in her work, in particular for the queen who isn’t, alas, the best-dressed woman in the world, never happier than when in gumboots and Barbours’ [jackets], trudging in the rain,” Frears said by e-mail. “Her clothes, like everything in the film, had so much to say about the state of things in my country.”