‘It Ends With Us’ Costume Designer on Blake Lively’s Outfits Criticism: “It’s Great to Be Talked About”

Eric Daman, the costume designer for It Ends With Us , admits he saw the online fan discourse surrounding Blake Lively’s looks in the film, but he was just excited to see people talking about his work.

Box Office Preview: Can Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Pull Off Barbenheimer 2.0?

While filming was underway in New Jersey and New York in the Spring of 2023, some fans captured photos and videos of Lively dressed as her character Lily Bloom on the street. The images quickly spread across social media , with some book fans criticizing Lively’s outfits, as they weren’t what they imagined Lily wearing when reading Colleen Hoover’s book that inspired the movie.

Daman brushes off the concerns and says and is honestly thrilled that “there’s just so much buzz around the looks themselves.”

Daman also believes that once “people actually see the context of the clothing and how it’s actually put together in the scenes, [and] how Blake carries it all as Lily, I think people are gonna be thrilled and very excited.”

It Ends With Us , directed by Justin Baldoni (who also plays Ryle), follows Lily who overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. But after getting romantically involved with neurosurgeon Ryle, she sees sides of him that remind her of her parents’ abusive relationship.

Below, Daman, who also worked as a costume designer on the original Gossip Girl , also talks about what it was like to reunite with Lively more than a decade later, and how he used inspiration from the hit show to create the costumes for some of the characters in It Ends With Us , including Lively and Jenny Slater (Allysa).

What were the initial conversations when it came to planning the costumes and looks for the film?

Blake was already attached, and Blake and I have an awesome past as far as being on Gossip Girl together for six years. The first big conversations were around Lily and Lily’s style and that we really wanted that to feel very, very special, and one of a kind with sort of a distinct fresh perspective that felt idiosyncratic to her personality. And also, what Blake was going to bring to the table. She is a fashion icon. So it was very exciting to kind of brainstorm together and be reunited to create this incredible, complicated, powerful character.

I was inspired to bring in some very special, one-of-a-kind vintage pieces. Blake and I had very, very similar thoughts on that, leaning into the bin clothing and kind of striking this balance between masculine and feminine elements. We don’t want Lily to appear like a shrinking violet. She is a very strong-willed, self-empowered woman and I think it was very important not to lean into clothing where it felt more delicate.

How involved were Hoover and Baldoni in the design process, and did you have conversations with the cast members as well about their characters?

Yeah, definitely! Big conversations. Blake is an amazing creative force. Justin had ideas as far as tone and what we wanted to emulate. And I feel like as far as style goes, he was excited to see what Blake and I would create together within the parameters of the overall look of the film that works in production design and whatnot. Colleen really also let us do our thing. I had incredible interactions with Colleen, like when she would come through the wardrobe department or come to set. She was only very positive and encouraging and really wanted Blake and I to bring our sensibility to how we felt Lily could embody clothing. When I was working with Blake on Gossip Girl , we had a very symbiotic relationship about who Serena was. Blake loves to play dress up and loves clothing and has an incredible eye and amazing taste. Hopefully, we share that ( Laughs ), and teaming together again after it had been over 10 years since I worked with Blake in that capacity, it was kind of like a day hadn’t passed. But we both had grown in such amazing ways.

You beat me to it as I was going to ask you about what it was like working with Lively on Gossip Girl compared to now.

It was like a very unexpected gift. We spent six years together on Gossip Girl . I met Blake when she was 19 and kind of get to experience her 10 years later and vice versa. We get to have this kind of shared experience.

Hoover has previously shared that she aged up the characters for the movie adaptation. How did that impact your planning for the costumes?

'It Ends With Us' Hits Theaters This Friday -- Here's How to Read All of Colleen Hoover's Books in Order

The aging up of it and Blake and Justin coming in having the ages that they are, especially Lily’s character, I feel like she would have more a sense of herself and a sense of style in a way [compared to] if it was like just after college, [where] there’s still maybe a little bit of experimenting or not as much self-confidence in the way that we chose to dress her. That again goes back to self-empowerment. I think the self-possessiveness that Blake brought to Lily.

Was it challenging balancing looks for present-day and younger Lily (Isabela Ferrer) while also trying to tie them together?

It’s an exciting challenge. You want it to feel connected and you wanna kind of blur the lines between the two, which is something I like to do with tone, the color — the very de-saturated palette that young Lily is in. And that would have been the 2010s. There was a resurgence of a grunge style that was happening then. Gossip Girl leans into it a little bit with Jenny Humphrey, but that’s a totally different story. But it felt natural to lean into that de-saturated color world. For young Lily, we blurred the lines between them and kind of set the stage … to kind of find the symbiosis without it being a clone like a mini-me of it was really exciting, a fantastic challenge.

During filming last year, some photos and videos that fans shot on the street were circulating on social media, resulting in a lot of discourse surrounding Lively’s costumes specifically. What was your reaction to that?

It’s exciting that there’s just so much buzz around the looks themselves, whether it’s positive, and haters are gonna hate. And social media likes to lend itself to heavy criticism based on absolutely nothing. So my point of view is that when people actually see the context of the clothing and how it’s actually put together in the scenes, how Blake carries it all as Lily, I think people are gonna be thrilled and very excited. And so far the reaction with some of the people that I’ve spoken with that have seen it has been very, very positive and exciting.

When we were working on the new Gossip Girl , it was my first time when the kids would come out of their trailers and their costumes were being detailed from head to toe, like designer callouts, pros and cons, just the whole thing within minutes of them stepping out of the trailer on the sidewalk, way before things were airing. So I have a different understanding of how social media, the excitement around the clothing works, which is exciting for me also to see that people are that interested in my work being positive. You know, I am a fan of pop culture and to be able to be a part of it is an incredible gift that, one way or the other, it’s great to be talked about. … You can please a lot of the people a lot of the time, but you can’t please everyone all the time. You gotta just let it roll off your back and just know that there’s gonna be people that are happy about stuff and people that are not.

Did you have a favorite costume in the movie that fans can be on the lookout for?

One of my favorite looks is the first time we see Alyssa, Jenny Slate’s character, kind of arriving in that dust bowl when Lily’s first cleaning out her floral store, her boutique, and Jenny Slate arrives in this amazing, kind of off the runway Oscar de la Renta floor-length coat and an orange Birkin bag. This flawless specimen of wealth and style and enters this dust bowl. It’s a beautiful space, but it’s definitely the antithesis of this woman you see. And there’s something about that look and the way we first meet Jenny’s character Alyssa that to me it feels very, very special and that she is so genuine and kind and has empathy and humor that balances that look out because if she was cold and austere, it would be a very different person wearing that outfit.

And to be self-referential, there’s definitely a nod to Blair Waldorf in there, because in creating Alyssa, she would have grown up with the Gossip Girl . She definitely would have been a Blair. So I think having a couple of headband moments and just throw that up to the fans as sort of an Easter egg.

Once fans see the costumes within the context of the film, what do you hope they take away and do you hope their opinions change?

That these are all very strong characters. I think it’s really important and to know that Lily is self-possessed and creative and strong. She has a very strong sense of who she is. And I think to be able to help create that through clothing, that’s what I love doing as a costume designer. I’m really there to give the actors and directors tools to come to life and become their characters.

***

It Ends With Us is currently playing in theaters.

'It Ends With Us': What the Critics Are Saying