In BDSM biker romance ‘Pillion’, clothes become a medium for ‘fantasy and fetishism’

In the opening scenes of Adam Mars-Jones’s transgressive novella Box Hill, 18-year-old Colin trips over the size 12s of an enigmatic biker named Ray. Now fortysomething, he recalls the six years they subsequently spent together, describing an intense dom/sub relationship that variously straddled love, sex, power and, on occasion, abuse. ‘He was like a glossy catalogue illustration from Lewis Leathers, and I expect I looked like a tired window display from the Burton’s menswear shop,’ observes Colin. The entirety of the following page is spent relaying the particulars of the zip on Ray’s leather one-piece, and his tricks to keep it from sticking.

‘I’d read the book in lockdown and my takeaway was how detailed these descriptions were – how important sound, texture, and materials were for fantasy and fetishism,’ says costume designer Grace Snell, who built Colin and Ray’s wardrobes for new film Pillion, Harry Lighton’s tender adaption of the 2020 book, for which she won a BIFA Craft award earlier this month. ‘I was completely intimidated by the script, so I knew I had to design incredibly specifically.’

While Mars-Jones’s story takes place in the 1970s, Pillion is set in the present day, and the action – the couple’s first meeting, wrestling in Ray’s living room, picnic-cum-orgies in the forest – has moved to Bromley and Chislehurst. Harry Melling’s Colin, additionally, is 35 when he meets Ray (played by Alexander Skarsgård), working as a parking attendant but still living with his parents, and the pair’s relationship occurs over a number of months. Snell, who was involved with the film near the beginning, was introduced to Lighton on the recommendation of producer Emma Norton. ‘I made some calls, crunched numbers, and assigned half the budget to Alexander’s leathers,’ she remembers.

‘I’m obsessive and completely lock in,’ continues Snell, recalling her approach to research, which for Pillion included a journal of notes and ideas borrowed from people she met during pre-production. ‘I went to a couple of large “ride outs” where bikers travel to a chosen space, normally a village green, have a soft drink and chat shop,’ she shares. ‘I chatted and observed behaviour, tuning into what could be fetishized. Then when it came to BDSM and dom/sub relationships, I spoke to people within that community, with complete awe. We had to be authentic [with the film] – no judgement, no tropes or caricatures.’

The participation of members of the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (GBMCC), the largest LGBT+ bike club in the UK, further employed this legitimacy, with several members forming the biker gang Ray leads (Jake Shears was the anomaly alongside Melling and Skarsgård here, cast as a sub called Kevin whose sartorial proficiency – primarily in latex and crop tops – exposes Colin’s newbie energy). ‘They were super helpful,’ Snell remarks of the GBMCC. ‘I was excited to shop for them and get them excited about the project, and lots of them kept the clothes, which was a big compliment.’

Echoing the oversized shape and brown shade referenced in Box Hill, on screen Colin adopts his first leather jacket from his dad (on the suggestion of his mum), which underscores the keen sense of uncertainty he possesses in the picture’s first two acts. ‘This film follows Colin testing his boundaries and understanding his sexuality, and I love that his dad’s leather jacket is a gateway to that,’ says Snell. Ray’s biker wardrobe meanwhile, consists of two high-octane looks, each custom-made in collaboration with Kate Jennings of Hideout Leather. ‘Harry [Lighton] and I were keen to lean into what bikers are wearing these days. The updated design of leather, new materials, and flashier branding,’ advises Snell. The first look revisits the ‘yard long’ zip of Mars-Jones’s world (it’s essentially fetish wear), while the hero style of cream, black and blue announces Ray’s exaggerated confidence, practically placing him on a pedestal.

Away from the leathers, which exist at the film’s visual core, Snell’s choices speak to the wider landscape of queer identity that Pillion aims to explore. When Colin and Ray first meet for example, the former is on a date (set up by his mum, in the same pub he’s just performed in with his dad). The other guy wears a deliciously camp ‘Alexa, Free Britney’ tee that stays in your head long after the character’s few minutes are up. ‘Harry [Lighton] wanted Colin’s date to be so comfortable with his sexuality that it makes Colin shy about his own,’ offers Snell. ‘As a designer, you pick moments where you push a narrative like this.’

Accessories, similarly, provide further accents to Lighton’s storytelling, with Ray’s metal-framed reading glasses in particular cultivating a subtle backstory that otherwise wouldn’t exist. ‘I knew early on that Ray should wear glasses, but I had to convince Harry [Lighton] and Alexander,’ says Snell. ‘I liked that there was an imperfection to this perfect man.’ Sourced, like the brown jacket, from her own stock, the frames, worn by Skarsgård at least, riff on the avant-garde in a way that raises quiet questions about Ray (like where does this man shop? Which in turn builds on Colin’s imposed ignorance at what he does for a living); their cold aesthetic too, echoes the starkness of his flat. Most significant for Snell however? ‘The padlock and heavy chain Colin wears. It’s so obvious and hard to hide. I loved that rebellion.’

Pillion is in cinemas internationally now.