The Notebook Costume Designer Took Inspiration from This Glamorous Royal Moment in History (Exclusive)

Notebook is one of the most classic love stories of our generation.

The film — which was released 20 years ago today, June 25, 2004 — is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks and tells the story of Allie and Noah, two people who were never meant to fall in love but, against all odds, did. found a life together.

The story unfolds over a lifetime, and in the film you see two generations played by Allie and Noah — and in flashbacks, played by Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, the time (and fashion) begins in 1940.

Costume designer Karyn Wagner pieced together what seemed like endless pieces of costume for a film that spanned several decades, and that meant creating almost everything from scratch.

“I did about 90% of the costumes because I’m so particular about the storytelling,” she tells PEOPLE while reflecting on the film. “Maybe I rented [Allie’s] swimsuits or I bought them vintage, but I like to give visual cues to the audience through clothes, and I do that by building everything.”

Rachel McAdams in The Notebook.

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One of the looks Wagner created for Notebook is Allie’s wedding dress — but not for her wedding to Noah. During the breakup of their romance, Allie found love with Lon (James Marsden), whom she planned to marry. The wedding will be the biggest event this side of the Mississippi! And that required an appropriate dress.

“I wanted to mention Princess Grace’s wedding, because one of the things that costume designers have is what I call an alliance with the audience,” explains Wagner. “There are certain shapes that everyone recognizes. You see that shape and you immediately know where your character is. Grace Kelly is one of those, even if you don’t know who she is, you’ve seen her wedding photos [to Prince Rainier III of Monaco]. They are some of the most famous wedding photos ever, and she has this beautiful, beautiful dress. I wanted to reference that with Allie’s dress.”

Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco on their wedding day in 1956.

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The result was a beautiful white dress with lace on the bodice and a delicate lace overlay around the neckline. The dress also had long lace sleeves, just like Kelly’s, and a massive veil.

“I wanted to refer back to the family’s wealth with the amount of lace on the dress and also how big the veil was,” says Wagner. “Going back to the luxury laws during World War II, you couldn’t have a veil that big unless you were wearing your great-grandmother’s veil from Victorian times or you were rich enough to fly it over from France and say, ‘I don’t care how much this costs, my daughter is getting married and will have an eight foot veil.’ That’s a lot that went into that wedding dress.”

Wagner says that the last piece of the puzzle for making the dress was that she wanted it to be uncomfortable for McAdams and, in turn, for Allie, because while wearing the dress, she discovers that Noah is still out there and that her feelings for him are still buried deep. in her heart.

“I wanted the dress to make her realize that she wasn’t happy about this. Was she? She wasn’t happy. She actually didn’t want to be here,” says Wagner.

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Ryan Gosling in the movie The Notebook.

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Allie’s and Noah’s Closet are worlds apart — because their characters come from different walks of life in their early years. Noah lives with his working-class single father, while Allie comes from a wealthy two-parent family.

Wagner painted the picture with their clothes, including Noah’s simple shirts and pants, which she says she imagined he bought from a Sears catalog or grocery store. She says that he would probably only buy one or two new shirts a year, and only if he absolutely needed to, while with Allie, her mother would take her to the big city to a fashion store for custom clothes that were way too big for her. actually should have.

And even though Noah’s outfit was simple, Wagner says she still custom-made every piece — right down to the shirts he wore (multiple pieces, just in case something got stuck while he was renovating the house).

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the movie ‘The Notebook’.

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But you can’t talk about it Notebook costumes, not to mention the blue dress. You know the one. It’s a simple short-sleeved dress that Allie wears when she returns to Noah (and actually wears for a good portion of the movie) after being away for several years. It’s the dress she wears when she realizes that maybe their love story isn’t over.

And it’s a dress that Wagner knows is part of her legacy as a costume designer, no matter how many other projects she works on throughout her career.

“I feel great as a costume designer that the blue dress has become so iconic,” she says. “Obviously I hit a little nerve.”

The inspiration for the dress came from the British painter JMW Turner. Wagner saw one of his paintings that she said combined the blue of the Thames in England with the surrounding green and those colors created what she wanted for Allie’s dress and the scene around her.

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Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in the movie ‘The Notebook’.

New Line/Kobal/Shutterstock

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“Part of it was when [Allie and Noah] to experience this great moment and she has this epiphany that this is what she wants and she doesn’t care how poor she will be and she doesn’t care how uncomfortable it will be, I wanted her to be one with her surroundings, hence the blue, because the sky in Wilmington was so blue,” she says of the scene in the film and their North Carolina location.

But Wagner wanted the dress to be both sophisticated and simple—a combination of where it comes from and where it inevitably goes. And blue also symbolized her hope for the future.

“I stuck to very simple decorations because I wanted to [Noah] to be able to see beyond the dress,” she says. “I wanted Noah to be able to fit the dress into his psyche, but still see it. So the dress had to be there, but not there. There had to be a lot of hope. It had to be a little simpler than anything else, a little less sophisticated, a little throwback to when they fell in love.”

He also admits, quite simply, that the dress just looked good on McAdams, which is the ultimate goal for a costume designer.

“I always forget to say these things because it seems so obvious, but it’s a really nice color on Rachel,” she says. “It really brought out the blonde in her hair, it was great on her complexion and flattered her figure. It really makes me happy that I did something right with this dress.”

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Source: HIS Education