Costume designer Christine Wada received a 2022 Emmy nomination for her work on Loki season one. There, she established costume designs for all of the prevalent Loki variants running rampant across the first season that were directly inspired by iconic imagery of Loki from the Marvel comics. She also designed fantastics retro-futuristic costumes for the first appearance of the Time Variance Authority, or the TVA.
Now, in its second season, Wada’s designs kept a foot in the first season but took inspiration from unique locations and eras within scripts for season two.
“This season, we did try to create a little more division in terms of rankings of seeing the inner class structure of the TBA — cafeteria workers or mail room people — that maybe wasn’t quite as broad in the first season,” Wada explained. “For the rest of the costumes, there was a real drive to keep a common thread between season one and season two for the TVA.”
One major difference between season one and season two emerges with the character of Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino). In season one, we’re introduced to Sylvie as a direct variant of Loki. As such, her costuming, while still feminine, had anchors within the general Loki mythology.
In season two, Sylvie is mentally done with all of the TVA nonsense. As such, her costumes reflect the 1980s world to which she escapes. Wada designed costumes for her that underscored an avoidance of 1980s cliches as well as the hint of androgyny at Sylvie’s core. Those costume choices even included a traditional early 1980s McDonald’s employee outfit.
“It was very important in season one that she wasn’t overly a sexy superhero,” Wada said. “I feel like that ’80s silhouette with the somewhat more baggy pants and the acid washes kept her in Sylvie choices.”
Season two also takes a huge leap in episode three, “1893,” in which the action leaps backward in time to the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair. There, Loki and others time travel to meet Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), a Kang variant who will prove invaluable in Loki’s attempt to restore order to the rapidly expanding timelines that plague season two.
When designing looks for the episode, Wada wanted to remain within a very specific color palette for the episode’s costumes, reflecting a more black and white world. Costuming the episode meant that she needed to provide outfits for over 300 actors and extras. She was also able to incorporate fun touches within the designs such as bowler hats. Lots and lots of bowler hats.
“It was a really incredibly fun episode to play with silhouettes. The TVA is a very silhouette-focused environment because the workers there are somewhat anonymous. That aligns with the 1890s in an interesting way because that was an era lacking choice as well,” Wada remarked. “The silhouettes of people tended to always be the same. I showed Kasra [Farahani, director and production designer of the episode] photographs from the period of a huge room of just bowler hats. Once again like the TVA, people didn’t really have choice, so that was an interesting narrative to play on.”
Loki streams exclusively in its entirety on Disney+.
