Lemonade, Beyoncé’s just-released visual album has quickly been heralded as the singer’s most raw and honest body of work to date, a project that elucidates one of the most mystifying pop figures of our times. In songs about family strife, heartache, and even daddy issues, the singer lays bare plenty of personal anguish. But what still remains a mystery—other than the true identity of “Becky,” that is—is the backstory behind the scene-stealing fashion that brought Bey’s surreal vision to life. The fleet of costumes Beyoncé dons throughout her hour-long cinematic feature looms so large the costumes almost become characters in their own right. Whether the ruffled yellow “Carmen Jones” flamenco dress she wears as she smashes car windows with a baseball bat or the eye-brimming sombrero that Bey hides behind with stealth, they seem to possess their own personal narratives. And after speaking with Marni Senofonte, the stylist mastermind behind these looks, we learned they in fact do.
Senofonte, who is also responsible for the Gucci-monogrammed looks of “Formation”, spoke to us from Miami, where she is working on Wednesday’s launch of Beyoncé’s world tour. Here, she tells the story behind the eye-catching looks of Lemonade, from Gucci to Roberto Cavalli.
Photo: Courtesy of HBOLemonade Was a Production of Scheduled Spontaneity.
I think the story Beyoncé was trying to tell was always inside of her. There was a “run and gun” aspect of production: It wasn’t like a television show or a film script like, “OK, we’re shooting these three scenes and we’re going to shot them until completion.” She kept catching moments and seeing moments, and shooting in the sense of, “Oh, there’s this beautiful light, let’s catch it!” There was a “scheduled spontaneity” to it all.
Roberto Cavalli Served Up the Lemonade Dress.
That was actually a Roberto Cavalli dress by Peter Dundas. We were heavy into prepping for the tour, and B. Akerlund shot that look. That part wasn’t shot in New Orleans, so we were piecing together the film, if you will, as we were going and she was seeing what she was missing. So we reached out for a bunch of stuff as well—going back and forth from New Orleans and L.A. That was the vibe of this project: the antebellum-slash-Victorian-slash-modern-day.
Queen B Nods to Ancient Egyptian Royalty.
Kim Kimble, who is an amazing hairdresser, came up with the Nefertiti crown. She built that. She braided onto a milliner’s cap and braided around it into this form. The harness was Zana Bayne and then we painted Bey gold.
Hood By Air’s Fur Brought Out Bey’s Inner Pimp.
As soon as I saw the harness [of the Hood By Air fur], I loved it. I think the swag that she had in “Don’t Hurt Yourself” was perfect for that fur. And when she put it on, it came alive, with her braids and the Yeezy look—those pieces were workout clothes in a way. It’s this angry, crazy song and you’re letting it out, but there is a masculine element to it as well. Kind of like, “I’m this strong feminine woman, but I’m a pimp!” Like, “Who you think you are?! I’m the pimp! I’m the one who runs this!” and that was the energy that I felt. And she embodied that, because she kind of is that. She’s a sweet girl, but she really is a boss.
Photo: Courtesy of HBO
That Larger-Than-Life Hat Crossed Borders.
There were a couple of people we worked with in L.A. from Baron Hats that had to make that large “Formation” hat. It’s so large, it’s bigger than the average, and this milliner had to actually go to Mexico because we couldn’t find anyone to make a hat with one piece of felt with a brim that large. He went to Mexico to get those bases, and he came back and he built it from there. It’s based off a sombrero, and it’s much larger than it even looks—it kind of travels throughout the project.
She Brought the House Down in Gucci.
My favorite look of the whole film was when we were in the burning house. I made that white lace bodysuit dress with the big pouf on her shoulders she’s coming down the walkway in. Before that, she was in a burning house and she had a light she kept twirling around, it was a chartreuse Nicolas Jebran gown. I had all of her women in these futuristic Victorian costumes. In the pullout shot when she was standing in front of the house, she had this yellow tapestry Gucci suit on, and then I killed all the women around her in furs, Marc Jacobs Victorian tops with sequins, and tons of Gucci. They didn’t show it for too long and it was dark, but that was a really amazing part of it for a stylist. She was burning the house down in Gucci.
The Victorian Age, Out of Africa.
We were going back and forth between the antebellum and Victorian era, and it was before the shows in February. It’s funny because it seems as if [the Victorian trend] is so highly influenced by the last shows. We were kind of laughing because, “Oh my gosh, we’ve been doing this since November!” But then I was saying, “All creatives are on some same wavelength I think.” Even when she sings “Sorry,” I put her in a men’s camouflage black-and-white Neil Barrett suit and we had tribal-print paint on her face. But it was a men’s suit, and for her dancers I made these African bodysuits. That part of it was fun, but it also had a Victorian flavor to it. It was kind of weird how everything started to look the same, like, “Oh! Is this Victorian? Yes, it is!” Every print I saw I was like, “Oh this is really African, but it’s just camouflage!”
Photo: Courtesy of HBO
Couture as Anachronism.
When we started we were thinking about antebellum South, and Bey was talking about going back to these plantations. There was a question of, “Do we do authentic vintage or is it about wearing couture on these plantations?” And I was like, “It’s about wearing couture on these plantations!” You have 50 amazing women in there and Bey was in couture Givenchy up in the tree. It’s a juxtaposition of what historically black women on a plantation were: Here they all are in couture. It’s also about not knowing where you are. Are you present? Are you past? Because that’s what the story is about—all of the things that you go through, people before you have gone through them. So the fashion stayed in this world of, “What’s vintage? What’s now?” I tried to mix it the best I could by staying true to the project, but then it is fashion, it is Beyoncé, and I did want to put a fun twist on it.
It May Not All Mean What You Think.
I don’t ever take anything Beyoncé does as literal, because I know her as an artist; it could be any lemon that’s thrown your way, it could be anything. People may be thinking she’s talking about a man when she’s talking about a situation—that’s how I watched the film. It kind of was a dream sequence, because she falls into this thing and goes back in time, and then she comes through it.