When Lee Toland Krieger released The Age of Adaline in 2015, the film presented a unique visual puzzle: how do you dress a woman who has lived for nearly a century without aging a day? The protagonist, Adaline Bowman, rendered immortal following a freak accident in 1937, navigates the modern world frozen at the age of twenty-nine. The answer lay not in science fiction aesthetics, but in the meticulous, historically grounded costume design spearheaded by Oscar-winning designer Angus Strathie. The wardrobe of The Age of Adaline operates as a masterclass in visual storytelling, illustrating how clothing serves as an anchor to our past, a shield against the present, and a highly curated personal archive.
For a film spanning the early 1900s to 2014, the costume department was tasked with creating a sartorial timeline that felt both distinctly period-accurate and cohesively modern. Adaline’s clothing had to reflect a life lived quietly on the run, continually changing identities to avoid government scrutiny and public exposure. This necessitated a wardrobe that was sophisticated yet entirely devoid of the ephemeral trends that date a person to a specific micro-generation. Exploring such cinema's visual narratives reveals the immense psychological weight placed on costume designers to establish a believable reality before a single line of dialogue is spoken.
Angus Strathie’s Century-Spanning Vision
Angus Strathie, who previously secured an Academy Award for his exuberant and highly theatrical work on Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, approached The Age of Adaline with a distinctly different, far more restrained philosophy. Here, subtlety was paramount. The goal was to define both the different historical periods and the complex, guarded emotions of Adaline through her clothing. The resulting wardrobe consists of approximately fifty distinct looks for the protagonist, each carefully assembled to project a sense of historical density.
"We wanted a retro feel to all her clothes to emphasize that Adaline is an old soul," Strathie explained during the film's promotional circuit. "She appears contemporary, young and lovely, but she has the essence of someone who has been here for a hundred years." This essence was achieved by blending eras effortlessly. Adaline might pair a structured 1960s coat with a delicate 1920s sweater, reflecting the realistic habits of a woman who has simply kept her best, most durable clothes over the decades.
Instead of adhering rigidly to the fashion of the 2010s for the modern-day scenes, Strathie envisioned a character whose shopping habits were entirely informed by the early twentieth century. Adaline does not stop buying clothes, but her acquisitions are highly selective and deeply traditional. As Strathie noted, "she picks things with an eye toward the clothes she grew up with. She always looks smart, but not flashy." This philosophy mirrors the reality of a woman who must remain inconspicuous; flashiness invites unwanted questions, while classic elegance allows her to move through society largely unnoticed.
The Gucci Collaboration and the Burgundy Velvet Gown
No discussion of The Age of Adaline is complete without examining the prominent role of the Italian fashion house Gucci. At the time of production, Blake Lively was the face of the brand, a relationship that facilitated unprecedented access to Gucci's archives and its design team. The collaboration yielded several custom pieces that anchored the film's aesthetic, but none more significant than the gown worn for the narrative's pivotal New Year's Eve scenes.
The dress - a sumptuous, custom-made burgundy velvet gown featuring delicate embellishments and a plunging, elegant back - serves as the emotional and visual centrepiece of the film. It is first introduced in a flashback to a bustling New Year's Eve party in 1945, and it triumphantly reappears when Adaline attends a modern-day celebration in 2014. The gown’s design had to accomplish an extraordinary sartorial feat: it needed to look perfectly appropriate for the post-war glamour of the 1940s while remaining fiercely stylish and relevant in the twenty-first century.
The rich burgundy hue and the classic, Grecian-inspired silhouette achieved this dual purpose seamlessly. The dress underscores the film’s central theme that true style, much like Adaline herself, remains immune to the passage of time. It acts as a visual bridge connecting her past to her present, a tangible artifact of a life preserved.
A Believable Archive: Sourcing and Styling
Achieving the film’s authentic look required more than just high-end designer collaborations. The production team painstakingly sourced genuine vintage clothing from various eras, mixing them with contemporary items and custom-built garments. Lively was famously and deeply involved in this process, dedicating significant time to researching vintage fashion and visiting specialist archival boutiques, including New York Vintage. Her commitment to the character's lived reality heavily influenced the final wardrobe selection.
"The honesty in it, the history in it was really important because we could've actually had even more fabulous costumes if we were just purely making a movie from a wardrobe perspective," Lively remarked in an interview at the time of the film's release. "But we really wanted to be honest and true, and what would this woman be able to actually afford?"
This pragmatic approach ensured the character never felt like a mere mannequin for haute couture. Adaline worked as a librarian and lived a modest, quiet life; her wardrobe had to reflect her financial reality and her need to blend in. The resulting aesthetic is one of careful, deliberate curation. We see a woman who invests in high-quality wool coats, sturdy leather boots, and well-made knitwear - garments that are designed to withstand decades of wear. By rooting the wardrobe in economic reality, Strathie and Lively created a character whose immortality felt grounded and remarkably human.
The Turtleneck as a Temporal Shield
One of the most defining characteristics of Adaline’s modern wardrobe is her heavy reliance on conservative necklines, specifically the turtleneck. This stylistic choice was not initially detailed in the script but emerged from a character analysis session between the lead actress and the costume designer. The turtleneck functions within the film as both a literal garment and a metaphorical shield. Examining the costume design archives of contemporary cinema frequently reveals how subtle clothing choices communicate profound internal states.
Strathie highlighted this collaborative decision, stating, "It was Blake's idea to include a number of classic turtlenecks in Adaline's wardrobe… And it was a good idea! It aged her in a good way by making her look a little conservative and covered up."
By keeping her body completely covered, Adaline maintains a strict physical boundary between herself and the modern world she inhabits. The thick turtlenecks, frequently paired with heavy wool coats and tailored trousers, give her a guarded, impenetrable silhouette. She is a woman hiding in plain sight, using heavy, enveloping fabrics to construct a fortress against intimacy and exposure. This subtle aging of the character through conservative clothing choices adds a crucial layer of psychological depth to the film, demonstrating how a wardrobe can communicate internal trauma and defensive survival strategies.
Dressing the Decades: The Scale of Production
While Adaline's wardrobe rightfully commands the audience's attention, the sheer scale of the costume department's task extended far beyond the leading lady. The Age of Adaline required authentic, meticulously researched period attire for multiple decades, demanding excellence not just for the main cast, but for every background performer who crossed the camera's lens. Director Lee Toland Krieger was highly vocal in his praise for Strathie’s exhaustive efforts, pointing out the immense logistical hurdles of the production.
Strathie and his team were responsible for ensuring that every extra in the background of a bustling 1930s San Francisco street scene or a post-war 1950s gathering looked entirely authentic to the year. On certain demanding days of filming, the costume department managed fifty or sixty extras, requiring fastidious fittings and historical accuracy to prevent the modern world from bleeding into the carefully constructed past. The immersive, dreamlike quality of the film relies entirely on this background texture; if a single extra wore a dress with an anachronistic hemline or a distinctly modern synthetic fabric, the fragile illusion of Adaline's long life would immediately shatter.
The Enduring Legacy of Adaline's Aesthetic
More than a decade after the film's production, the wardrobe of The Age of Adaline continues to resonate strongly within fashion criticism and film analysis. It stands as a profound rejection of disposable fast fashion, advocating instead for a wardrobe built on undeniable quality, personal history, and deep sartorial significance. Angus Strathie and Blake Lively succeeded in creating a visual language for immortality that relied on the quiet dignity of a well-cut coat and the enduring appeal of vintage tailoring.
The film serves as definitive proof that the most compelling cinematic wardrobes are those that prioritize narrative honesty over mere visual spectacle. By asking the practical question of what a woman over a hundred years old would actually wear - and exactly what she could afford to buy - the creators of The Age of Adaline delivered an enduring piece of cultural art. The clothing on screen is never just worn; it is deeply lived in, carrying the invisible, heavy weight of the decades in every seam, stitch, and silhouette.
