Michael Fassbender as an assassin in The Killer.
Courtesy of Netflix
At the opening of David Fincher’s The Killer, Michael Fassbender’s unnamed assassin describes his look as based on a German tourist he saw in London. It’s a convenient disguise for blending in on the streets of Paris because, as he explains, no one wants to interact with a German tourist. But what does that look like off the page? That task fell to costume designer Cate Adams, working with the exacting director. “David had a lot of ideas about how he wanted him to look,” she says. “He did not want him to look cool at all, like a typical assassin.” The solution? Bucket hats, Skechers and “lazy people clothing.”
- When Cate Adams first read the script, a costume note that jumped out at her was that The Killer is wearing a bucket hat. Immediately on her mood boards she had photos of dudes wearing bucket hats, among them Hunter S. Thompson. The trick was finding the right one. “We scoured all of North America for a bucket hat,” she adds. Adams’ shopper ended up finding the perfect version at an Army surplus store from the brand Broner.
- The Killer’s choice of Skechers footwear was written into the script, and while Adams flirted with trying a shoe that was not made by that brand — trendy dad shoe brand Hoka was on the table at one point — Skechers just worked best. “We just really dove into buying every pair of Skechers that we possibly could,” she says. They chose a style called Moreno, which they loved because it wasn’t quite a sneaker; it was more like a hybrid sneaker-Oxford.
- The Killer has to be able to get in and out of his clothes quickly and dispose of them with ease when he’s on the move, so Adams thought about “lazy people clothing.” That means items with zippers and snaps. If he’s wearing a pullover, it’s going to be a little bit oversized so he can slip it over his head. They even flirted with the idea of having him wear orthopedic shoes with Velcro, but ended up discarding that for the Skechers.
- Adams started putting together a look filled with browns, but when she sent David Fincher reference photos of Paris, another idea bubbled up: Make him blend into the background. That meant finding ecru- and cement-colored clothing. “We just hit the ground running looking for that Parisian stone color of the buildings,” Adams explains. Fincher doesn’t like pinks and saturated greens, she says, so The Killer’s khakis had to be more of an off-white variety.
- According to Adams, Fincher noted at the beginning of the process that The Killer would shop any place that is accessible — an airport, for instance. “Because he’s so calculated, he’s going to walk into a store, he’s going to know his size, he’s going to pick it up, he’s going to buy it, and he’s going to put it on,” Adams says. “There’s no thought about alterations or anything along those lines.” You’ll find that all the brands he wears are pretty basic: His chinos are Dockers, his puffer is Gap, and his zip jacket is from Lululemon. Even his aloha shirt, part of that tourist getup, could potentially be found at a drugstore.
- Fincher was insistent that The Killer have no-show socks. (The ones he wears are by the company Falke.) “I think he just wanted it to be kind of weird, too,” Adams says. “And also maybe not for any [leg] hair evidence to stick to a pair of socks or something along those lines.”
This story first appeared in a November standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.