In ‘Bonjour Tristesse’, Miyako Bellizzi’s dreamy costumes tell a fashion story of their own

A distinctive black and white image, one of Larry Clark’s Tulsa photographs from his controversial 1971 series, sits behind costume designer Miyako Bellizzi when we meet on Zoom in anticipation of her new project, Bonjour Tristesse. A contemporary retelling of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel, and the directional debut of writer-turned-filmmaker Durga Chew-Bose, the film’s protagonist, 17-year-old Cécile (Lily McInerny), experiences a wholly different adolescence to the suburban teenagers Clark depicted 50 years ago, and indeed those who inhabit his later films, and yet his work had a subtle but not insignificant bearing on the feature. Chloë Sevigny, whose breakout role arrived with Clark’s Kids, stars in Bonjour Tristesse, while the iconic blue T-shirt she wore in the 1995 picture, finds a double in Cécile’s wardrobe. ‘That was a special correlation I only made later,’ shares Bellizzi. ‘Maybe it was subconscious.’

‘For me, Cécile’s character was the one that I was, not most invested in, but that I worked on a lot,’ continues the stylist and costume designer. ‘And I had a lot of fun with Cécile.’ When we meet the teenage in the south of France with her father Raymond (Claes Bang) and his girlfriend Elsa (Naïlia Harzoune), she’s not explicitly interested in clothes, preferring to dance, smoke, kiss the boy next door or read beside an assembly of beverages (water, juice and tea). Her style is largely casual and she rarely bothers with trousers in the house; in one scene, the camera appears to remark on this carefree attitude, watching as she realises her jumper is inside out, takes it off, and rectifies the error.

The story behind ‘Bonjour Tristesse’s dreamy costumes

Following the arrival of Sevigny’s Anne, a fashion designer and her late mother’s best friend, a woman who is characterised as giving hugs that are warm and cool and no longer than a few seconds long (‘maybe that’s what elegance is,’ Cécile later ponders), the mood shifts and the teenager is confronted by the two women, and the different versions of who she might grow into after the summer. Clothing becomes a key signifier, a witness to the marriage of stiff formality and creativity that distinguishes Anne’s character, and a vehicle to contain Elsa’s free spirit. For the former, Bellizzi referenced Georgia O’Keeffe (‘she’s a creative woman in this industry that had a uniform’), while Elsa, a dancer, became a kind of stand-in for the offbeat aesthetic of New York label, Maryam Nassir Zadeh.

‘I like to be out in the real world too, that's how I like to be inspired,’ the stylist, who’s best known for working with menswear, notably on the Safdie brothers' films Good Times and Uncut Gems, adds. ‘I would go to markets in France, trying to source locally. I would travel, take the train, be inspired by the people that I saw in the neighborhood.’ Costco-sized rental houses in Paris were key for vintage and modern pieces, while Lebanese designer Cynthia Merhej, of the label Renaissance Renaissance (an LVMH Prize semi-finalist), was additionally brought in. ‘It was Durga’s idea, she was like “I see Anne being Cynthia's work”, and honestly it was refreshing,’ reflects Bellizzi. ‘It’s a very rare, very special collaboration that doesn't exist much in this industry. It was like the meeting of the minds, we just understood each other.’

While Merhej’s pieces became the blueprint for much of Anne’s wardrobe – an early challenge for Bellizzi and Chew-Bose, ‘seeing Chloë not as the fashion designer that maybe everyone would think that she is’ – the pair’s real showpiece is a champagne coloured evening frock that Anne gifts Cécile. Reworked from an existing Renaissance Renaissance design (and originally produced in black), it features a magnificent skirt with a train, and a tie that transforms its essence into a bubble shape. ‘The dress is the most beautiful thing,’ says Bellizzi. ‘We changed the fabric content, going with a really beautiful silk taffeta, and added tulle underneath so it would create more body and grab the light.’

Either side of Cécile’s fairytale moment, she mostly wears swimwear; a red two-piece, something with a black and white print, a yellow costume that nods to the 50s. ‘To me, those swimsuits are the star pieces, because her being in the sea is such a big part of the film. Cécile would wear a swimsuit all day – go to the beach, take a nap in it, go to dinner wearing it still – she's a teenage girl, she doesn’t care. So I wanted it to be intertwined with her everyday wardrobe,’ offers Bellizzi. ‘Finding the yellow swimsuit was like finding a needle in a haystack; I had been looking forever. It was really important to find something one of a kind, that you would never really see or you can't buy – that's a big part of what I like to do, find things you can't just buy in a store, even if it's contemporary.’

Bonjour Tristesse opens in selected US cinemas today (2 May 2025), with an international release to follow.