Audrey Fisher Talks True Blood Costumes, Blood & Sexy Sookie

Truebies have long been impressed with costume designer Audrey Fisher’s work on True Blood, and now she’s getting the recognition she deserves! Two recent publications featured Audrey, including her alma mater Occidental College. In the features Audrey talks about her vision for the various characters, provides sketches for some costumes, and even drops a couple of hints about the True Blood season 4 finale!

From Occidental College:

The gay African American fry cook Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis) “is always a delicious mix,” Fisher says. “I love putting his costumes together, and I really let my creativity go wild.” Civil War-era vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) “has a deep emotional sadness and grief, but a regal bearing.”

Bill’s primary rival for Sookie’s affections, Viking Eric Northman (Alexander Skars­gård) “is a dangerously sexy vampire who dresses to seduce and show his physical power, so that’s what guides me,” she says. Eric’s cohort, fashionista vampire Pam De Beaufort, “is equally as lethal, but she’s playful as well, and also very aware of fashion. She likes to dress up for her job at Fangtasia and have fun with it, like a Vampire Barbie.”

(read more…)

From The Costume Designers Guild:

Fisher believes the most challenging and interesting part of her job is designing with stunts in mind, as there is continually fire, blood, stunt people, stand-ins and dummies to deal with. She ends up having either four to six multiples for each outfit, which she and her shopper, Kristine Haag, find at stores like Kohl’s, J.C. Penney, Delia’s and Old Navy. Often, due to the quick pace of the production, costumes get approved but all the multiples aren’t available. At times, they have to buy sizes much larger and cut them down. “So, it’s a little different than fittings where you can just fit singles, go vintage shopping, do whatever you want,” Fisher explains. For this season’s finale they were prepared with multiples of twelve on costumes for the characters Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Tara (Rutina Wesley). She can’t reveal why until it airs but does say it’s the largest show with which they’ve been prepped.

(read more, see sketches, and watch a video interview with Audrey…)