Zendaya was only allowed to wear the iconic Mugler robot suit if it was the “perfect measurement.”
The 28-year-old actress turned heads in the sci-fi ensemble for the Dune: Part Two premiere earlier this year, and stylist Law Roach has recalled how the French fashion house — which was founded by the late Thierry Mugler — was very strict about the sizing of the costume on his client.
“It was a dream. It was a dream of us after she did the first one. But Mr. Mugler had recently passed away, and everyone knew that he was in charge of the archive, so I didn’t think that it was possible.
“We flew to Paris to try to convince Casey Cadwallader to let us do it. And it was so funny, because his team was on one side of the table and we were on the side of the table, and I’m like, I got my pitch.
“I’m like, ‘Listen, this is going to be amazing. The fashion world has never seen anything like this,’ and I’m pitching and pitching, and then he just looked at me and said: ‘But it has to fit. It has to fit.’ And what he meant by that, is that it’s really a robot suit.
“So wrist to elbow has to be perfect. It has to be the perfect measurement. And from elbow to shoulder has to be perfect, and from ankle to knee and thigh to hip, and everything has to fit perfectly.
“So we took a bunch of measurements, and he called me, and said, ‘You know what, the measurements look similar.’ So we flew back to Paris to have a fitting. It was so fashion. It was just so divine,” Roach said, speaking at a Q-and-A at The Standard in London as part of the finale of Résidence CÎROC to promote his book, How to Build a Fashion Icon.
The image architect — who has worked with the Greatest Showman star since she was 13 and counts Anya Taylor-Joy and Celine Dion as clients — says they were relieved when everything fit and burst into tears.
“All the all the pieces were laid out. I looked at the shoes, and I’m pretty good to look. I can look at a woman’s feet and be like, ‘oh, you’re a six.’ And so I looked, I was like, the shoes are gonna fit. So he looks at me. I said, ‘I know the shoes are gonna fit.’
“So she put the shoes on, and then she slid on the shin, and, you know, from ankle to knee, and then she put on the thigh, then she did on the other side, and then she slipped on the hip, and then she put on the arm and the hands, and all these things started to come together and just click in.
“And we were in the room crying. Casey was crying, I was crying, and it just fit. And then Zendaya just became this thing, and she started moving gracefully. We were like, it’s meant to be!” he exclaimed.
