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as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, a film designed by Jennifer Johnson, the original dress designed by Orry-Kelly. "It was so rewarding to recreate such a famous dress and have to engineer a size A cup into Marilyn's size with an illusion neckline. This dress truly took a team effort, from extensive research, paern making, beading, cuing, sewing, interior engineering, fiing, and final primping for camera perfection, and I am proud to say that everybody nailed it!" In the original Some Like It Hot, we see the film in black-and-white and Blonde followed suit by shooting the scene in black-and- white as well. Cunningham explains: "The only time the original dress has ever been seen in color is when it's been in a museum or the few photographs of it. There's a heart on her le bu cheek outlined in red beads. Otherwise, the dress is all silver and gold sequin with crystal beads. The heart is about three inches tall and it's souffle underneath that, so it looks like her skin coming through. There are red beads that are Wakanda Forever, designed by Ruth Carter, but their superhero history starts with Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson's Man of Steel. "I was the 'cape meister.' I made all his capes and did a bunch of work on the suit and his muscle suit. We kind of became the so item super suit manufacturer in town, because we don't make any of the hard bits, but work with the companies that do the armor or the glyphs or whatever needs to be aached to the so bits. What we excel at is knowing how the human body moves and works and what stunt people need. I think Mary Ellen invented how to hide a zipper in the crotch so actors could pee." BHC has continued in the super suit world of television projects as well. "We did many, many, many seasons for Supergirl, filmed in Canada, but we made all the super suits. Super suits and hero outfits were here. We gave Supergirl her pants." One of the (physically) bigger fantasy projects they've worked on was the 2019 The Lile Mermaid Live! where the team built the mermaid tails but, more importantly, Ursula the Sea Witch, played by Queen Latifah. "There were two outfits for Queen Latifah, a coat that came off to reveal her gown with tentacles. The coat had 20-foot-long tentacles that unfurled from way up high in the stage as she was lowered down. The tentacles were puppeteer and moved." The coat was removed part way into the song, revealing a black latex/vinyl strapless gown with shorter tentacles, more manageable for her to cross the stage and dance. Even with a tight deadline, Cunningham and his team were able to fit the 10-foot-wide costume in a panel truck and deliver it to a dance studio for Queen Latifah to rehearse in to ensure she could hit her choreography, even with the tentacles. One of Cunningham's favorite projects was recreating a line-for-line reproduction of the iconic Some Like It Hot beaded gown for Ana de Armas Top row: Supergirl; iconic gown recreated for Blonde; octopus tentacles for The Little Mermaid Live!; Kiss of the Spider Woman with Jennifer Lopez. Bottom: Hacks promo with Jean Smart. 46 FALL 2025