“The more I researched the game, the more excited I got about the prospect of working in that world and doing something like this,” says Fallout costume designer Amy Westcott. “I was up for the challenge of making it good enough for the fans, for the gamers, for the people who are really into it.”
Based on the Besthesda video game series, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic future Los Angeles, where people try to survive in the wasteland among mutants, bandits and radiation. The series takes place 200 years after nuclear warfare has decimated the planet, with some living aboveground in the wasteland and others living in underground bunkers known as vaults. “Production stopped for people above ground when the bombs dropped, and that was sort of our retro-futuristic ’50s,” says Westcott. “So, really it was about getting things to that place where they had lived for 200 years outside in what elements had an effect on them.”
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For the Vault Dwellers, the jumpsuits are an iconic look from the video game that Westcott wanted to emulate but also elevate. “A lot of times people try to make what is in a game, and 2D, into something functional, and it ends up looking costume-y, and we really fought against that,” she says. The first job was to find the right material to use, though physical materials tend to not be as forgiving as digital ones. Luckily, Westcott was introduced to the perfect material on a previous project. “I had worked on a sci-fi about 10 years ago called After Earth, and somebody introduced me to a fabric on that, that was sort of revolutionary to me… It was a four way stretch, it was forgiving, it looked like a woven fabric – which means it had the qualities of being not shiny and cheap looking, it’s a beautiful fabric.”
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Outside of the vault, the most iconic costumes are for Walton Goggins, in both the forms of Cooper Howard and The Ghoul. “In my head, I couldn’t really get to The Ghoul until I understood Cooper,” says Westcott. “Who the guy was before he turned into The Ghoul, and it was important to get that look down first for a lot of reasons.” The first reason might be the most surprising, as it is part of the costume that is fairly well hidden from the viewer. “Under his duster and vest, and layers he has acquired in the wasteland over the years, is his cowboy costume, so to speak. You can’t really tell… but it’s very, very distressed and aged.”
Once Westcott had the elements of Cooper, she designed the rest of the costume with a key part of the video game in mind – scavenging for armor. “He acquired that duster, so you see the bullet holes,” she says. “You see where he had to shoot somebody to get it, and his vest is the same way. These are acquired pieces, scavenged pieces, because that’s so much a part of the game, and that was important for us to follow the skeleton of the game.”
Click the video above to watch the full interview.