“Everything Everywhere All At Once” Costume Designer Shirley Kurata on the Meaning of a Chinatown Cardigan, and Finding Her Oscars Fit (Hint: It’s Rodarte)

As the costume designer for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Shirley Kurata is one of the buzziest names in Hollywood, but she’s been a familiar face in the fashion industry for almost 20 years. Kurata, who is also a stylist, has worked alongside Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy since they first launched their label in 2006, and was a frequent collaborator of Opening Ceremony and Kenzo’s Humberto Leon and Carol Lim. She’s also brought her uniquely colorful aesthetic to music videos and performances by A$AP Rocky, Bleachers, Tierra Whack, and the Linda Lindas, to name a few.

It was the perfect training for conceptualizing and developing the costumes for the comedy/drama/action movie written and directed by The Daniels, aka Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, that takes viewers through a variety of multiverses as Evelyn Wang, a Chinese-American immigrant and owner of a laundromat played by Michelle Yeoh, attempts to get through a day while dealing with an IRS audit, the prospective crumbling of her marriage, a visit from her father, and general mother-daughter irreconcilable differences. Kurata’s costumes add an indelible layer of meaning—and sometimes humor—to the film, culminating in an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design. We spoke to Kurata a week after winning a Costume Designer’s Guild Award for Excellence in Sci-Fi film, and three days ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony itself about Rodarte’s return to New York last month, the process of putting together costumes for the film, and how she’s preparing for her big night ahead.

How was it to be back in New York for the Rodarte show last month?
It was so much fun. Usually we have people traveling from Los Angeles [Rodarte and Kurata are both based in LA], and because of Covid people weren’t really traveling. This was the first show where a lot of friends came up and it was sort of like old times. It was a really emotional show. 

Did you have a favorite look from the collection?
Hmm there’s a lot, but remember the little sparkly two-piece pant set—actually, you know I had conversations with Kate and Laura like, ‘Ok, we need to talk about the Oscar look,’ but they were like, ‘Why don’t we talk about it after the show? Maybe there’s something there that will inspire you?’ I had originally thought I didn’t want anything beaded or hard to sit in, but then I saw those little sparkly numbers on the runway and I was like ‘God, it’s so pretty, maybe I do want a little bit of something beaded and sparkly. So fortunately there was a fabric in that family that they didn’t use for the runway, so that’s really exciting.