‘Saltburn’ is the first film to nail noughties fashion
IF YOU’RE of the generation that used Facebook in the noughties to show off your club pics from the night before, youâve probably learnt to be a lot more vigilant about your digital footprint. And you have good reason to be, because there are people like Sophie Canale, the costume designer for Emerald Fennellâs highly-anticipated movie Saltburn, who are deep diving into those photo albums for research.
âFacebook was a really good source for me,â she says about her approach to the film’s costumes. âIt was so popular at that time, everyone was just posting photographs of their nights out and university lives. It was a great source of fashion, because I was able to really capture what people were wearing in that period.â
Saltburn follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a slightly dorky, seemingly working-class lad that has started at Oxford university during the mid-2000s. After befriending Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), Quick is invited to spend the summer with him at the family estate, named Saltburn. Tapping into themes of wealth, privilege and obsession, you wouldnât be wrong to draw parallels to the beloved classic The Talented Mr. Ripley. The same parallels can be made in the costume department, too.
That isnât to say the two films have a shared dress code. While The Talented Mr. Ripley taps into the holiday uniform of the upper-classâan old-money look that’s been gushed over on TikTokâSaltburn nails noughties fashion with an accuracy rarely captured on screen.

Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger feature regularly within the university scenes, while Jane Norman and Miss Sixty can be seen on the female characters. British collegiate style comes accurately in the form of rugby polo shirts, chinos, checked button downs and basically anything that would be found in a Jack Wills storeâanother sartorial contributor. Canale notes that student-era Prince Harry and Prince William were major inspirations, mining the attire of upper-class, Eton-alum to show how Oxbridge undergrads would dress.
âThere’s a realism in the way I wanted to design it,â Canale adds. âI love putting real life onto screen, so when the opportunity arose to work on something that is a contemporary piece, I was really excited by that.â
Canale is calling me from Wales, where sheâs working on a period drama set in 1918. But one of her most notable costume credits comes from Bridgerton, the Shonda Rhimes drama thatâs become Netflixâs most popular English-language show.
âI do see the film [Saltburn]Â as a period piece, because it wasnât about going to the high street or shopping in Selfridges and Harrods to get key pieces of today,â she continues. âEven the cut of a T-shirt; you can go into H&M now and the ribbing wonât be the same as it was in the 2000s. We were buying things from the back of people’s wardrobes, so we had to go to Vinted, Depop and eBay. It was really fun and a different way from how I’ve worked previously â usually you buy pieces or go into costume houses, but this was a style that wasn’t really there.â
Much like anyone thatâs been through the formative experience that is uni, Canale wanted the characterâs costumes to be a reflection of their ever-changing personalities, and that detail is noticed in how worn out they were. In fact, the piece’s newness (or lack of it) reflects how natural it is for that character to be in that environment.

âI washed Felixâs costumes more, they were broken down. But with Oliver’s, they were so stark and so new, it was like he bought a new wardrobe to go to university,â explains Canale, noting the university scarf that Oliver wears when he arrives on campus. âHeâs trying to fit into the gang but everything heâs wearing is a bit new and fresh out of the packet.â
Beyond the standard collegiate uniform, Saltburn offers plenty of black-tie inspiration â prime for any formal festive events that you might have in your upcoming calendar. Canale had custom Burberry suits made for Felix, while Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) wore suits from Berwick Street tailor Chris Kerr. But Oliverâs suit â which Farleigh ruthlessly points out as being a rental in the film â comes from a hire house, purposefully picked for being âa bit older and not as sharpâ. Canale notes, âI wanted to have that element of it being lived in.â
There is, surprisingly, a wearability to these clothes. While the film instils nostalgia for a pre-TikTok, tabloid-frenzy age, the fashion hardly speaks to the low-rise, crop-top trends that weâve seen populate the catwalks. In fact, the clothes were more covetable than they were cringey. The embroidered, white jacket Oliver wears to a fancy dress party in the latter part of the film, despite being a costume, is something youâd expect to see on the Bode website, while Felixâs wardrobe throughout â though a special shout-out should go to his canary linen shirt â made what the uniform of rugby boys residing in Clapham back in the day look surprisingly good. Iâd even go as far to say that this is a very stylish film, one that has the influence of its aforementioned distant cousin, The Talented Mr Ripley.
While Canale makes it very clear that the dress code hasnât infiltrated her own wardrobe, special occasions have called for that mid-2000s influence. âIt will always have a place in my heart, even more so because Saltburn does,â she explains. âFor Emeraldâs [Fennell] birthday we all dressed in pink, and I was in a Juicy Couture tracksuit and a pair of Uggs. But that’s the only time you’ll catch me dressed like that.â
Saltburn is out in cinemas from November 17th.
A version of this story originally appeared on Esquire UK.
Related:
The rise of creative directors in sports leagues
What happens when fashion, entertainment and culture collide?