Michelle Pfeiffer catsuit in Batman Returns, the gloriously witchy capes of Hocus Pocus, Constance Wu’s fairy princess ball gown in Crazy Rich Asians, those iconic Men in Black shades. For nearly 40 years, designer Mary Vogt's work has set the standard for costume design in Hollywood. In Red Notice, she adds yet another look to the canon: Gal Gadot’s slinky vermillion Versace cutout dress. As The Bishop, the world’s most wanted art thief, Gadot glides, tangoes and high kicks her way toward stealing one of Cleopatra’s golden eggs, with nary a wrinkle in sight. Her sparring partners, con artist Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) and FBI profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson), are no less sharp in their custom-made suits that somehow survive punches, somersaults and spear-fighting. 

Ahead, Vogt explains the lengths she went to produce indestructible couture and gives up the secret tricks of the trade that you’ll never see on screen. 

What’s the first thing you do when you begin work on a project like Red Notice?

You read the script, you meet with the director, and you get his or her vision of what [they’re] trying to do with the film, what the tone is, who the stars are. With this movie, I was working very closely with the stunt coordinator and the dance choreographer, because it’s so physical. Rawson [Marshall Thurber] wanted it to be a very stylish movie, so that means the clothes have to work for the stunts. 

I did three Men in Black movies, so I learned a lot about how to have a suit in a stunt. And then I did Hairspray Live!, which was dancing. For [Red Notice], you had suits and evening gowns together, and you had stunts and you had dancing. [For the masquerade ball scene, the costumes] were all custom-made and had to be made like dancers’ clothes, like when you’re doing a Broadway show. The pattern has to be adapted so that they will work for the scene. 

Dwayne [Johnson], if he wanted to, could rip the clothes apart just flexing his muscles. So, for Dwayne, we had at least eight suits. We were worried because they were custom made in Italy by Brioni, it took forever, and I thought, “If something happens, we can’t get another one in a hurry.”

What was so special about these suits?

During a dance or stunt sequence, you don’t want the clothes to be distracting. If you lifted your arm in a normal suit, the whole thing would go up. But in a dancer’s suit, the arm hole is cut very high, and you put a gusset in it so that when they move their arm up, the suit stays perfectly still. In Hairspray Live!, I made the suits out of stretch material. Brioni wouldn’t make the suits out of stretch fabric. They’re very fitted — Dwayne likes his clothes really fitted — so when they dance, you can see that the suits are open. If they were shut, there’s no way we could keep them from ripping. 

And we made Ryan’s tuxedo, so we built the gusset into the pattern, and we made the lining out of stretch fabric, so that it could stretch. I was expecting the worst, but it actually worked out pretty good. Occasionally, I would see a couple of Dwayne’s tuxedo jackets in the workroom to be repaired.

Tell us about the gorgeous dress that Gal Gadot’s character wears. Why did you choose to make it red?

Red was a theme in the movie, and she really shows up. Nobody else wears red. There’s a few little red feathers in people’s hair, but that’s it. 

I wanted to know: What is she going to do in this evening gown? So I talked to the choreographer, and she said that [The Bishop] was going to do a tango. If you get bored, go look up the history of tango — people always wear the same dress. It’s always tight, it’s always sexy and it always has a slit. But then how high a slit? I looked at some videos of Gal, and there’s one video of her working out with someone and she was kicking, and I thought, “Oh my god, she kicks over her head!” If you can do that, you’re going to want to do it.

We had an office in Italy at that time, because we were going to shoot in Italy, and I asked the supervisor there if they had any connections at Versace. Whenever I think of Versace dresses, I think of dancing. They were always made for people going to clubs and dancing all night. They sent me their archives catalog, I picked out three dresses, and I asked if they could send the dresses and Gal could try them on. There was one that she really liked. It was simple, and it had this horseshoe-shaped slit. But when she tried to kick, it was too low and it was on the wrong leg. The supervisor in Rome went and talked to Versace to explain the modifications we needed: “This dress is going to go through a lot of stunts and action, and it can’t rip.” They actually sent a seamstress over from Italy to measure Gal. 

I was following the news about COVID in Italy, and was like, “Oh my god, they’re going to shut down the atelier any day now.” I was getting more and more nervous, so again I sent people up from Rome. They convinced [Versace] to ship [the dresses], like on a Friday. And the next day, everything got shut down. Then I thought, “I hope these dresses are safe to bring in!” We had connections at the CDC because the costume supervisor did Contagion. Nobody knew, we were still washing down grocery bags! We kept it separate anyway and cleaned the zippers with alcohol and stuff.

How would you describe the overall style of the movie?

I’ve always been a huge fan of the early Pink Panther films and the Bond films. They always looked slightly overdressed, super elegant and a little over the top. It’s not something you could do in a drama, but this was a little more heightened sense of reality. Rawson said, “I want them to be really stylish, and they can be on the edge of being a little too much.”

If you think of your career more broadly, what would you say has been the most challenging costume to work with?

They’re all challenging in their own way, because you want the costume to work for the actor. If the costume doesn’t work for the actor, the best thing to do is to throw it in the trash. Not many people could wear that [Versace] dress. If it was a different actor, you would give them something else. When I did Crazy Rich Asians, I designed this wedding dress and it was completely unbalanced: the whole back of the dress was where all the weight was. Plus, the actress, Sonoya Mizuno was walking through water, and the dress was soaked. But she was a ballerina, so she’s super strong. People say, “Oh, I want to wear that dress to my wedding.” I say, “Forget it! You couldn’t even stand up in that dress.”

Millions of years ago, when Bob Ringwood and I did Batman Returns — the catsuit. It worked great on Michelle Pfeiffer because she moves beautifully, she was very slim and athletic. Nine out of 10 actors wearing that costume would look terrible. They’re all hard if they’re not right.

How many costumes did you have to create and make for this movie?

It wasn’t that many. I think Gal only had 9 or 10 changes. One of my favorite scenes is when she’s with that psychiatrist. She has this fabulous coat that she wears. I don’t think any of them have more than 10 changes, but they do a lot in each one, so you needed a lot of multiples. Movies I do tend to have just a few changes. I hear things from other designers like, “Oh, she had 55 changes.” Fifty-five changes! How do you do that? I’d start losing interest after the 20th change.

If you have to pick one favorite look from Red Notice, which would you choose?

I like it when the three of them are together because they’re such a great trio. I guess I like when they’re in Paris. It’s a very short scene, but they really look like a team in those outfits. They’re all in tan, brown and navy blue. It’s kind of like their little superhero outfits.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.