“I’ve always wanted to do sci-fi because I’ve always wanted to marry all of my practices together,” says Loki costumer designer Christine Wada. “I’ve always really been interested in trying every different genre out. As an assistant and as a key, I did a lot of period stuff, and then when I started branching out on my own, I did a lot of comedy and drama.”
Loki takes place after Avengers: Endgame, when the god of mischief escapes and creates a parallel universe that alerts the Time Variance Authority, or TVA. When given a choice between helping the TVA or meeting his demise, Loki sets off on a time-traveling thriller in search of a much greater threat. The series is nominated for six Emmys, including a nomination in the Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costume category for Wada.
“For Loki, the scripts were just really good,” she says. “The language was just really built into the script, with Madmen meets Bladerunner. I think that kind of says it all and gave us a really great language to build off of.” In terms of aesthetics, Wada says she needs to have some sort of grounding in something “visually recognizable” to create the most believable costumes, which can be difficult with a show as chaotic as Loki. “When you have something that’s a time travel show and you have a character like Loki that could go anywhere, be anything, could be stuck in any timeline… it’s just an endless source of inspiration.”
For the rogue variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), Wada says it was important to give her an androgynous look along with a “scavenged” appearance to give the impression she was on the run. “Some of her pieces have been pulled from different places and different times but still have a very ‘Loki’ quality to it,” she says. “There was also a real interest in keeping her androgynous… we carried out that semi-genderless quality in the costume throughout and I think that was also a thing throughout all of the series, trying to really get into, ‘What does gender mean?’ And, ‘Why do we have to just assign these certain things to certain genders?’… There’s a real conscious effort to cast and do things as sort of genderless as possible, to not queue into those old tropes.”
Wada is returning for the second season of Loki, which will be a first for her. “Only Loki could get me to do a second series,” says Wada, “because it really is just an endless challenge.”
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