Tish Monaghan on Eclipse Costumes ~ Self Magazine

Self Magazine interviewed costume designer Tish Monaghan on how she put together the Eclipse look.

“SELF: How is Bella’s look in Eclipse different from in New Moon?

Tish Monaghan: Well, it’s funny because the movies come out a year apart, but onscreen, only a week has passed. With Bella [Kristen Stewart], she’s a little more settled in public and in her relationship with Edward. And so, at the beginning, I wanted to show a little bit more of a relation to the Cullens’ colors, a cool palate, and steer away from the warm earth tones that were more evident in New Moon.

There are quite a few romantic scenes, so I wanted to show a softer side of Bella without going too girly or feminine, because that’s just not at the heart of who she is. She’s a very practical person, so I tried to soften her up a bit with color. We open up with her wearing one of her signature plaid shirts, but it’s in a softer, lilac fabric and looks very pretty in a field of flowers. We tried to retain the integrity of her character, but just lighten her up a little.”

In New Moon, Edward [Robert Pattinson] is essentially in a suit throughout most of the movie because he almost gets frozen in time on the night of Bella's birthday party, when the tragedy occurs. So he sports that look of a restrained, contained individual throughout the film. I wanted to ensure that in Eclipse, we brought him back into the world of a grade twelve student. I wanted to make a point of getting him back to t-shirts and jeans and sneakers, a more casual look while maintaining the Cullen's flavor, which is always a little more styled - I mean, he's never going to look too rough and ready. We wanted to get him out of the gentlemanly quotient and into clothes that look good and fit nicely, but seem a little more youthful. For Jacob, the only thing I changed was I put him into some cutoff cargo shorts instead of cutoff jeans. We ended up using a lot of the same t-shirts because they fit him so well.

It's fun to go out and look for the cutest, girliest and edgiest things you can find. We bought her a really great Marc Jacobs' dress that she wears in an opening scene at school, and a really adorable fitted little A-line coat that we got from Anthropologie. It's just nice to find these little feminine lines with a lot of detail and a cute little belt, great tuft detail, little bow at the back. I know she really particularly loved that one, a little taupe plaid.

Bella, on the other hand, at Bella's graduation party, she wears jeans and a button-up shirt and everyone else is dressed to the nines. Bella dresses for practicality. We got a really nice dark-green hoodie by Voeu T Laxe at Fred Segal - that would be her signature piece for Eclipse. She's also got this great grey American Eagle jacket that she wears for most of the final sequence of the movie when she's climbing up into the mountains and a Lole burgundy shell with a nice little female shape.

See more at Self.