The Eternals’ costumes take inspiration from creator Jack Kirby.
When it came to designing the suits for Eternals, Marvel was against the idea of creating a central uniform; with such a large team, donning matching suits could cause them to all blur together. “They had to be individual characters,” Costume Effects Supervisor Ivo Coveney said. “It wasn’t like we were making an X-Men suit that everyone was [wearing], but it was trying to make sure that, when you looked at them, they looked like they were from the same place.”
It proved to be a fascinating challenge to unite the characters under a similar style, yet also individualize them. In addition to giving each character a representative color, the costume team divided the Eternals into two categories: fighters and thinkers. “Five of them are more thinkers and five of them are more fighters,” said Costume Designer Sammy Sheldon Differ. “Anything that’s more flowing, they’re the thinkers. Like, Ajak is the leader and she’s got a beautiful cape.”
Then, they added little touches — including their own cuneiform writing system — that would simultaneously link all of the characters and provide a timeless quality to their ensembles. “There’s a lot of Jack Kirby circles and lines,” said Differ, an homage to the comic book creator. “And then the texture and everything, we looked into the universe, and nebulas and minerals, Earth and galactic, and tried to pull some texture together that gave it a surface that didn’t look like it was just a fabric.”
When the cast stepped into their costumes for the first time, they were taken aback. “Brian Tyree Henry was so scared when he first came, because he didn’t understand how we were going to turn him into a superhero,” said Differ. “And so in his last fitting, when it was finished, he put it on with his eyes closed and then looked in the mirror and cried with joy.” It was a similarly “glorious moment” when Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Don Lee, Richard Madden, and Lauren Ridloff first saw each other suited up on set. “They hadn’t really seen each other in their costumes,” said Differ. “[They] came on set when we were in Spain, and they were all like… looking at each other. They were so happy and pumped.”
