‘Shōgun’ Costume Designer Carlos Rosario On “Going Straight To The Paintings” For The Aesthetic Of The Period – Production Value

“The most important thing was for me just understanding the Japanese aesthetic,” says costume designer Carlos Rosario. “[It was about] respecting the Japanese culture, being as accurate as possible and understanding the language of the clothing of that period.”

Based on the 1975 James Clavell novel, Shōgun takes place in 17^th Century when British sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) ends up shipwrecked in Japan. He meets Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), one of five Regents ruling Japan, who sees Blackthorne as a means to tip the scales of power in his favor.

Rather than rely on previous interpretations of costumes from 17^th Century Japan, Rosario chose to focus on paintings as the main point of reference. “At the end of the day, that was the essence of the period without any kind of interpretation,” he says. “I didn’t want to watch the Japanese movies from this period because I knew it was going to be an interpretation from the director or the costume designer, so going straight to the paintings and understanding the colors, the patterns, how the people were placed, their hairstyles… really is what helped me the most.” 

Though authenticity was already paramount in the design process, it soon became apparent that authentic materials were needed for the job to be done right as well. “In the beginning, I started swatching fabrics in America,” he says. “There was nothing that I liked, I felt that they didn’t capture the essence of our movie, so we hired two people in Japan so they could look for fabrics there… They sent us a box of fabrics that were incredibly expensive, but when we saw them, we were like, ‘This is Shōgun.’ From that moment on, the studio understood that in order for us to be able do our jobs properly and to be authentic and to respect the Japanese culture, we definitely needed to get those fabrics from Japan.”

For the color palette of the series, Rosario stayed close to what was described in the novel rather than going for historical accuracy. “It actually allowed me to create very specific boundaries between all the different characters, and it came from the first script, because it described Ishido’s army as the gray army and Toranaga’s army as the brown army.” While this aspect of the clothing wasn’t accurate to the time period, Rosario found that giving specific color palettes to different clans allowed for the audience to more easily distinguish between characters. “So, my concept was that if Ishido’s army is in gray, then Ishido should be also in gray,” he says. “For Toranaga, it was the same thing and then, because of that color code for those two characters, then I did the same thing for the other lords and for their families.”

Click the video above to watch the full interview.