Interview with the Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer of Train Dreams, Malgosia Turzanska
Late last year, while scrolling through Netflix, I noticed a familiar title. Train Dreams, starring Joel Edgerton, was adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name—a 120-page book that I read in a single sitting a few years ago.
The story traces the life of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who moves through the rapidly changing world of the American Pacific Northwest in the first half of the twentieth century. Haunting and poignant, the novella struck a chord deep inside of me, so the film had big boots to fill. Boy, did it ever fill them.
Easily the best film of the year, Train Dreams has been nominated for more than 150 awards, winning 21 of them at last count. It received four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best adapted screenplay.
The acting, cinematography, and music are all exceptional, but what struck me most was the costuming. I can’t remember ever seeing a movie that was as deeply steeped in the world of heritage workwear as this one.
Logger boots, faded selvedge denim, worn-down henleys, and wabash chore coats–Train Dreams showcases some of our favourite rugged style essentials. Everything was so carefully selected and so perfectly aged that the film absolutely feels like a time capsule from an age we so rarely get to see on the big screen and in vibrant colour.
Immediately after watching the film, I reached out to the film’s costume designer, Malgosia Turzanska. With an impressive resume, including an Oscar nomination for her work on Hamnet and immediately recognisable work from Hell or High Water and Stranger Things, she has unique insight into the world of costume design–something I knew very little about before our conversation.
I messaged her, and she responded right away, volunteering to answer all of my questions. Her in-depth answers gave me a glimpse behind the curtain at the world of period costume design, and I wanted to share our conversation with all of you. I hope you find her answers as enlightening as I did.
If you haven’t seen the film yet, you’re in for a treat. To get the most out of this interview, we highly recommend that you watch the film before reading it.
Q: First, can you introduce yourself to our readers? What is it you do, and how did you make your way into the industry?
A: Hi, my name is Malgosia Turzanska. I’m a costume designer.
I started by studying Costume Design, first at DAMU in Prague in Czechia, and then at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
I began by designing student shorts, then small music videos and commercials, and gradually made my way to professional film and TV.
This year, I’ve been very lucky to have worked on two movies that have both received a considerable amount of critical attention, Train Dreams directed by Clint Bentley, and Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your process? Where do you start on a project like Train Dreams?
A: Whenever I work on a literary adaptation, I tend to read the source material first, but then I switch to the script and never go back.
Book adaptations can be tricky, so I want to make sure that I am respectful to the screenwriter’s vision and work from the script out, but I am always curious about that original spark.
I start by creating a very raw emotional response to the text—a lookbook of images (photos, art, textures, colors) that evoke something in me of the story’s context.
At that point in the process, I might not entirely understand why I’m making these choices, but I share that with the director as a starting point and to make sure that our initial understanding of the script matches.
Then I start my research. I go as deep as possible, trying to get my hands on anything I can find relating to the topic of the film. You never know what information you might find that could change your take on the characters.
Once I feel I am fluent in the world of the story, I start sketching and collecting fabric swatches. From there, we start putting together the film’s wardrobe. We either make. buy, or rent the costumes—usually a combination of all three.
Q: What were you most excited about conveying to the audience with your costuming choices? What stood out to you in the text that you felt costuming could help you foreground for the viewers?
A: Train Dreams is such a special film. We travel with a mostly silent character through his entire life, which stretches over more than half a century. We witness the changing landscape of the country, both in a physical and metaphorical way.
Robert Grainier is not a leading man in a traditional sense. He is largely passive. History happens to him rather than because of him, but in that, he invites us in to be his companions on the journey.
I wanted to make sure I was deeply respectful to his character and the world he inhabited. I wanted the audience to be able to feel and smell the environment on his clothing.
The ageing needed to be absolutely believable so we can be truly convinced that he has lived and worked in the woods for years and years. Throughout all of this history, layers of dirt, sweat, and sap have built up on his costumes, as well as those of his fellow workers.
I loved digging into the culture of the early-20th-century loggers. Looking at the photos of the workers and at the actual garments they wore was very touching. Seeing the patches, the mending, the little alterations was like witnessing history on a human scale. I wanted to make sure we feel as much of that in the film as possible.
Q: Where did your research into early twentieth-century workwear take you? Any interesting rabbit holes you fell down?
A: So many rabbit holes! Many small-town museums have archives of incredible photos of the actual people who lived and worked in the area. These people have names, families — it made it so special.
I loved the Avant book and magazine series, Richard L. Williams’ The Loggers, and Ralph W. Andrews’ books This Was Logging, Glory Days of Logging, and Timber: Toil and Trouble in the Big Woods.
There was lots more–whatever I could get my hands on. Our director, Clint Bentley, Production Designer Alexandra Schaller, and I would exchange anything interesting we’d find, so we were all feeding this research fire.
Q: Where did you source the costumes for Train Dreams?
A: There was a huge mix of sources. We needed multiples for many reasons, so it was hard to find enough garments in one place. Our budget was way too small to make everything from scratch, but we did a lot of alterations and recut a lot of the pieces to fit in this world.
Whites’s Boots graciously agreed to collaborate with us. In fact, all of the footwear that Joel Edgerton wears in the film is White’s. For the logging scenes, it’s the Calk Block Heel Logger Boots, and for the non-logging scenes, it’s the 350 Cruiser in Distress Roughout.
Joel absolutely loved them. We shot around Spokane, so to be able to work with a local company that has been providing logging boots to the community for more than a century felt incredibly special.
Get yourself a pair of White’s 350 Cruiser boots here.
For the other garments, it was a combination of multiple sources: LCKing, Bronson, Levi’s, Olderbest, and Frontier Classics. For shirts with the beautiful large rectangular patch pockets, we ended up buying shirts and adding the pockets on to capture that specific look.
Q: How did you go about giving the garments that lived-in and worked-in look? What tricks do you use to distress garments?
A: Aging and dying was a major part of this project and my favorite part of the process. It adds that magical touch that truly make the costumes a part of the world of the story.
We used all the tricks in the book: washing, sanding, torching, overdyeing, waxing, painting — it is a combination of all of the above to make sure everything feels real.
Q: Do you do this yourself, or are their garment-aging specialists that you work with?
A: I do a lot of it myself, because I love it and I feel I have a good understanding of what it needs to be in order to read on camera, but there are people who have built entire careers ageing clothing.
We had help for a few days, but because the budget was so tight, it was mostly on me and the core team to handle it.
Q: Can you tell us anything about the boots nailed to the tree? Was this practice something you came across in historical records?
A: Funnily enough, this was a bit of poetic license! Clint and Alexandra, our director and production designer, came up with that idea, and it hit the perfect note. I cannot imagine the film without them!
Q: Train Dreams is a gorgeously textured piece of cinema. Were your fabric choices the result of conversations with the Director of Photography?
Adolpho Veloso is an incredibly talented DP, and we used almost exclusively natural light in the film, which makes it feel so special. I needed to make sure the camera has something to sink its teeth into, so to speak.
The ageing added texture and depth to the clothing, but also the fact that everything is quite wrinkled and dimensional helps with that as well.
Q: How did your fabric and costuming choices contribute to the overall texture of the film?
A: In terms of the colours, the most striking moment is Gladys wearing a yellow dress—I dyed it that specific yellow to make sure it pops, but is not overpowering and out of place.
Joel’s rusty oranges and his faded denim provided a nice softness and depth.
Q: The world changes around men like Robert Grainier and Arn Peeples. How did you use costume choices to show the passage of time (or to show men like Grainier’s resistance to the flow of time)?
A: Grainier and Arn are both part of the old world. When we see Grainier return to the cut after a while, he is surrounded by a completely changed industry.
The young men around him wear sleeker shapes, the textures become less organic, there’s less softness and depth to them. That makes Robert feel and look older and out of touch.
Then, when he travels to the big city at the end of the film, there is another jump. He is still holding onto his woollens and corduroys, but the world around him is synthetic 1960s, with its bright colours and modern silhouettes.
It was important to me to show that contrast. He is out of place, and yet he is exactly where he needs to be, watching the world around him move.
Q: What happens to the pieces when production wraps? Did you hold on to any of the pieces from the film?
A: Production normally holds on to the costumes for a while in case of any reshoots, but I actually don’t know where the majority of Trains costumes ended up after that!
Q: Finally, was there anything you learned or experienced during your work on Train Dreams that you’ll carry forward with you into future projects?
A: I loved learning about that part of American history. I loved getting my hands dirty. I also loved seeing the role women played in this very male-focused world.
Gladys was my favourite character in the story. She is so brave, so resourceful, so able to fend for herself. While her husband was away, she kept the house going, hunted, grew vegetables, and raised their child. Of course, she missed her husband, but she didn’t need to be rescued.
There was a line in the script which didn’t make it into the final cut of the film. Grainier comes home and tries to fix something, and he asks Gladys, “Where are my tools?” She replies, “These are MY tools!”
A huge thanks to Malgosia for taking so much of her time to answer all of my questions. If you are keen to learn more about her or follow her work, you can visit her website here.
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I’m Thomas, founder of Denimhunters. I write emails that go deeper into denim—how jeans are made, why details matter, and how to make better choices without the noise.
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