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"  What attracted you to Watchmen\u2014had you read the graphic novel?  I hadn&amp;#039;t, but I knew it was on Zack Snyder&amp;#039;s radar, and I had just finished working on 300 with him. So I read it and was immediately taken by how different it was from other graphic novels. It had such a fantastic sense of character exploration, and it really explored the psychology of the characters in a deep way, which is something that always appeals to a costume designer. How did you go about translating it from book to screen?  It&amp;#039;s one thing to see drawings on a page, but when you translate them to costumes on an actor in three dimensions, you start thinking about texture and what level of realism you want to project. We really wanted to tread a fine line between gritty realism and a sense that these people are not like your normal comic-book characters that are two-dimensional. These people have very complex, messed-up lives, and that was part of their appeal. So I wanted to get that sense of detail and personality into their clothes. But we also wanted to create striking, unique visuals for the film and turn up the volume with the costumes. So it&amp;#039;s a case of finely tuning when we wanted to stylize things and when we wanted to give a sense of realism. What kind of research did you do to evoke the periods covered in the movie?  Well, there was an immense amount of research for this film because it starts in 1938 and goes through1985. I looked a lot at how superheroes have been portrayed throughout history, in early comic strips, TV, films, graphic novels, and all the media throughout which they&amp;#039;re represented. But 90 percent of the costuming in the film is actually people in civilian clothes from those five decades of the twentieth century. So I put lots of research into what the people on the street were wearing, and I always like to cast the net pretty wide\u2014fashion photography, painting and sculpture, and family albums from the period\u2014and leave no stone unturned.  What were you biggest challenges bringing the characters to life?  Finding that fine line between a realism and a surrealism\u2014knowing when a character should be pushed a little further and when we had to hold back and embrace the humanity of the character. And translating them from two-dimensional line drawings to three-dimensional costumes on actors who had to go through elaborate stunt and fight sequences. And creating tight, restrictive sculptural costumes that have to look good in close-ups. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a9852/screen-style-watchmen-316913/?src=global_footer>