Touch Nothing is the new column where William Van Meter takes a fabulous person into a remarkable exhibit to talk about the show and his ongoing projects.
On paper, a TV show that’s basically a cross between saved by the bell And Requiem for a dream doesn’t necessarily scream cultural game changer. In its pre-production stages, it would have been easy to underestimate HBO’s juggernaut Euphoria would become. “When I first got the call for the pilot, I was like, OK, let me cut my teeth on TV,” said Heidi Bivens, Euphoriarhythmic costumer as we walked up 5th Avenue.
“Once Zendaya and Hunter Schafer were cast, and I had those first fittings, I started to think it might be something special,” she said. “But when I saw the dailies and the scene where Nate confronts Hunter in the kitchen at the house party, I cried. I was so emotional and realized, OK, we’re really creating something that we had never seen before – a show about teenagers for adults.
A double page of the just out of Heidi Bivens Euphoric mode. Courtesy of A24.
Bivens’ new captivating and visual companion book, Euphoric mode, compiles many of the show’s standout looks and delves into the character psychology and backstory found in every garment Bivens puts together to update the cast. “If there was a different cast on Euphoria,” bevens said, “I don’t know if the show would have done what it did.”
Undeniably a contributing factor to the troupe’s stratospheric success, Bivens’ work as a costume designer has had a resounding impact on fashion far beyond the confines of show business, his vision inspiring and filtering onto the catwalks of various designers. Each cast member has also signed deals with major brands.
Richard Avedon, Outtake by Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, October 9, 1969. © The Richard Avedon Foundation.
The day after his book came out last week, Bivens and I took a celebratory trip to the Met to check out “Richard Avedon: Murals.” It seemed like a good match—the TV show and the exhibition both deal with ensembles and archetypes and are a pure reflection of the times.
With these oversized prints, originally made and exhibited in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the late photographer encapsulated the turmoil of the era in black-and-white group photos of cultural figures, stars of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene to the Chicago Seven (anti-Vietnam War protesters the US government has infamously accused of conspiracy), to an array of US generals and politicians who orchestrated the war. Avedon assembled these men frontally, as in a police parade. The imposing artwork lends itself to a sense of monumental intimacy that is stunning in person.
The billboard-like prints that line the walls like tapestries are all 10 feet tall (the largest is 35 feet wide). The scale is humbling. Bivens approaches the image of Warhol, the coterie of the pop artist dramatically posed in paintings during the Renaissance.
The factory image is the star of the show and has special fashion significance. it inspired Steven Meisel’s 1994 benchmark CK One campaign, which culminated in Bivens’ youth. “It was a real reflection of what I saw around me in my community in DC,” she said. “I was going to Riot Grrrl conventions, punk shows and go-gos, hanging out with graffiti artists and skateboarders,” she continues, inadvertently checking the name of various subcultures seeping into euphoria dress language. “It was a portrait of my surroundings, so it was real and not like some inaccessible fashion advertisement. Since then, I’ve gotten to know a lot of the people who are in those photos. At the time, I didn’t know it was a tribute to Avedon.
Costume designer Heidi Bivens admires the Chicago Seven at the Met. Photo: Elvin Tavarez.
Bivens then turns to the portrait of Chicago Seven to analyze the corduroy pants paired with a knitted fringed scarf worn as a belt. “Building characters is my passion,” she said, “and seeing these portraits of such distinct individuals is thrilling. Their style is seemingly pedestrian, but it becomes iconic through Avedon’s work. It is often a question of noticing the details of how people wear things, rather than what they actually wear.
As we wander through the exhibit, Bivens checks out a case that contains outtake studies for the murals. An Avedon cutting room floor is always anyone else’s masterpiece. In these compelling B-sides, we see Candy Darling posing demurely in a sun hat and dress then stockings (she’s fully nude and looks like Venus in the finished mural, a powerful move and ahead of her trans visibility time). ). “Everyone wants to see results these days,” Bivens said. “If you have social media posts without BTS or something new to add to the conversation that everyone posts, even if it’s a project you’re attached to, it just seems derivative.”
Richard Avedon, Outtake by Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, May 21, 1970. © The Richard Avedon Foundation.
Coming out of Avedon we head to the just opened Cecily Brown show (“I see order in its chaos,” Bivens noted, quite impressed) which proved quite difficult to locate and resulted in a joyous wandering through the modern art rooms. We then sat outside the museum on the ledge of the fountain.
“Part of the magic of Avedon is knowing WHO document,” Bivens said. “It’s always about who he chooses to be his subjects.”
Installation view of ‘Richard Avedon: Murals’, featuring Avedon’s The Chicago Seven, Chicago, November 5, 1969. Photo by Eileen Travell, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Right now, Bivens is waiting for the new scripts for the series, and then she’ll start formulating the looks for the next season of Euphoria-which takes place five years after the end of the last season. Bivens studied film at Hunter University in New York, a few blocks from the Met. Prior to theater costume design, she started as a fashion designer and still often works in that field. She styled Chanel’s Spring 2023 campaign with Kristen Stewart, as well as their latest fragrance campaign. For her next projects, she went beyond the costume. She is co-producer of Euphoria The next HBO series from showrunner Sam Levinson The idolwhich stars Lily-Rose Depp and The Weekend, and is attached as producer for director Mary Harron’s upcoming film.
“Collaboration has been the cornerstone of everything I’ve managed to do,” Bivens said. “I am not a solitary creative. I like a dialogue. I like the settings.
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