Whitney Houston costume designer: ‘She wore really awesome streetwear’

In the new Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, music steals the show, but clothes come a close second. From the white tracksuit worn to sing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl (a performance spine-tinglingly recreated by British actor Naomi Ackie) to the bustiers and chokers of Houston’s Dolce & Gabbana period, the film is packed with memorable fashion moments.

However, it is the offstage outfits that do the most character work. “I think in her time off, she got to be herself,” says the film’s costume designer, Charlese Antoinette (her full name is Charlese Antoinette Jones but she usually drops the Jones), when we meet for coffee at the Soho Grand Hotel in Manhattan, ahead of its UK release on December 26. Antoinette is dressed head-to-toe in white and wears a gold necklace that says “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, made for her by a friend; it’s fair to say that the project got under her skin.

After hundreds of hours watching documentaries and researching paparazzi photographs, she realised the singer “was Whitney Houston on stage and Nippy [her nickname] offstage”. In her downtime, Houston was very fashionable, frequently clad in “really awesome streetwear looks, particularly in the late ’80s, early ’90s: Air Jordans, jean shorts and lots of leather bomber jackets. Things you wouldn’t always associate her with.”

The film tracks Houston’s life, from her rise to fame during the 1980s to her death in a drug-related accidental drowning in 2012. Central to the film is her relationship with her female friend, Robyn Crawford, which is depicted as a love affair that became platonic affection and professional collaboration. Their romance was rumoured throughout Houston’s life, and confirmed by Crawford’s own 2019 memoir.

The question of whether Houston had to hide her true identity — and whether the pressure of maintaining her “America’s sweetheart” persona contributed to her tragic downfall — has been much-debated. The film tackles these issues, albeit lightly (unlike previous biopics and documentaries it was signed off by Houston’s family and produced by Clive Davis, the founder and president of her label Arista Records, played by Stanley Tucci), but issues of identity are visible in her wardrobe.

Houston never looks comfier than while wearing loungewear at home in the 1980s with Crawford. She wears a Levi’s sweatshirt and jeans — an exact replica of the real outfit — when she signs her Arista Record contract in 1983, and annoys her parents, who think she should have dressed up. During the “How Will I Know” music video, Houston has a giant silver bow on her head; Crawford tells her she looks ridiculous, but Houston asserts that the people want America’s Sweetheart “and I’m going to give it to them”.

That said, Antoinette’s research suggested that Houston did have agency in her glamorous image. Having chatted to custom dressmaker Marc Bouwer, who created many of Houston’s most famous gowns, she thinks: “She knew what she wanted. He told me she liked things to be very fitted, very body con.”

She was a model before she was a singer and understood that clothing could create a persona. “I think for her, it was still that kind of mindset,” says Antoinette. There are outfits that would fit nicely into any ’90s revival moodboard, particularly a black matador jacket, with gold embroidery.

There were 110 looks for Houston alone, and more than 1,000 for the whole cast and crowd scenes with background actors. The job was a particular challenge because Antoinette only joined the film “a day or two before principal photography” when another designer left. It took three teams — about 20 to 30 people — to make hundreds of replica outfits, and to scour vintage dealers for period Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. The results will add to the buzz about Antoinette, who was recently described by Vogue as a “serious talent on the rise” for her work on 2021’s Judas and the Black Messiah, about the Black Panthers in the late 1960s.

Antoinette, now 39, grew up in Maryland, in a Pentecostal family. “Dressing up was a thing,” she says; she learned about thrifting and fabrics from her “fashionable family, who knew how to make the most of their limited resources”. She studied fashion merchandising and marketing at Philadelphia University, then moved to New York City to work in product development at Macy’s, got an unpaid internship on a movie set and worked her way up.

Isn’t it funny how when you’re about to give up things just like, blow up?

But then, after “these cool early wins, I moved to LA and was struggling. I had to start over,” she says. She went through a terrible break-up and could not pay her rent and was homeless for nine months, couch surfing. She fought her way out of that situation, which she credits in part to some fantastic friends, and to Ifa, a spiritual system practised among Yoruba communities in West Africa and the diaspora.

But still, until Judas, her career often felt like “just pushing along”, part of which was about being black in Hollywood. She saw the momentum of some white colleagues’ careers; and noticed prejudice: “With me, a younger black woman, they’re like ‘I don’t know if you can handle it’.” She thought about quitting because “it just felt like I was hitting a ceiling”.

Then Judas won her plaudits and visibility; she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has worked on acclaimed horror film Nanny, the second series of HBO TV show Random Acts of Flyness and a forthcoming movie about the history of Nike, produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. “Isn’t it funny how when you’re about to give up things just like, blow up?” she says, and smiles. Judas “definitely catapulted me into the space I am now where I’m able to kind of be really selective about what I want to do”.

Challenges remain, like the frustration of being pigeonholed. She is frequently put forward for movies with black casts or directors and is trying to work out “how to not constantly be pitted against my black colleagues”, including strategically turning down a lot of other black biopics. “I don’t have to look like the cast,” she says. “I mean, if the movie has aliens in it, I don’t look like aliens. You know? It’s like, Can I do some sci fi, please?”

I manifest. I rise from the ashes. I am a Phoenix

In 2021, she created the Black Designer Database, a resource that connects filmmakers and stylists with black creatives, to place their work on projects. The database started life as a spreadsheet Antoinette used until an influx of people started asking her “who are the black designers I should be using?” in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The database’s many hits include connecting Keresse Dorcely’s small bespoke brand, SIX/20, with Universal Television’s The Bold Type; Kat, played by Aisha Dee, wore the New York-based designer’s varsity sweatshirt and yellow baseball jacket suit.

In August, feeling burnt out, she took a rare extended break from work, and travelled to Nigeria, and had “an amazing spiritual experience there”. Now, she says, “I’m so clear, and so centred in this way that I don’t think I’ve ever been”. As she herself wrote in a 2021 tweet that went viral: “6yrs ago I was unemployed & homeless and couch surfing in LA. Now I’m the costume designer of an Oscar-nominated film and I live in a comfortable duplex with a view of Manhattan. I manifest. I rise from the ashes. I am a Phoenix.”

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