On this episode we talk to White Meat: Appetizer costume designer Azalea Fairley about the iconic looks she created for the zombies in our short.

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Here’s the transcript:

David Dylan Thomas: Hello everybody and welcome to the White Meat Podcast. I’m your host, David Dylan Thomas, and some great news. Our film, White Meat: Appetizer, which is the short film that’s kind of a prototype for White Meat the feature just got into its first film festival. We are going to the Pan-African Film Festival in Los Angeles in February.

So we’re super proud of that. We’re gonna be out there. I’m gonna be out there from February 13th to February 22nd. So if you are in or near Los Angeles and would like to meet up, if there’s anyone out there you know I should be meeting up with who might help us get this movie made. If I haven’t told you yet, the premise of the movie is that underneath Washington Square Park are buried the bodies of hundreds of enslaved people.

What if one night they came back from the dead of zombies, but they only ate white people? So our short Appetizer gives you a little bit of a taste of that, pun intended. But yeah, we got into our first festival. I’ll be in Los Angeles going to screenings. I’ve already seen the lineup. There’s some amazing films screening there.

So if you wanna try to check it out. Anyway, Pan-African Film Festival. I’ll be out there in February. And I would love to meet up.

Today we have a very special guest. Azalea Fairley did the costumes for White Meat: Appetizer, including some very iconic looks for our zombies. We’re gonna talk all about that and her history and wardrobe and all sorts of other things.

So let’s get right to it. Our first interview of 2026, Azalea Fairley.

[musical interlude]

David Dylan Thomas: So welcome to the White Meat Podcast. Our guest today is Azalea Fairley. Azalea, tell all the good people here what it is you get up to and how you contributed to our wonderful film.

Azalea Fairley: Hey. Hey everybody. Hey Dave. My name is Azalea Fairley. I was the costume designer for White Meat: Appetizer. Yeah, and that’s basically what my role was for the film.

What I get up to and realize is I’m also a costume designer for mostly theater. And yeah, I also do some fiber art stuff and I just am person who likes art. Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Cool. And I’ll give our listeners a warning. There is a radiator in the background that is, has a mind of its own, so we’re just gonna roll with it. But that hissing sound you hear is that and not a snake that we know of. You said fabric arts. What does that mean exactly? Or fiber arts, I should say.

Azalea Fairley: Fiber arts, I really am into quilting. And yeah, I kind of just have been doing that for some years on and off. It’s more like intuitive quilting. Sometimes that’s incorporated into design work. But for the most part it’s just like my own thing that I am just kind of trying to blossom in its own time.

David Dylan Thomas: Awesome. What kind of things do you quilt?

Azalea Fairley: I am currently experimenting with portraits. Back in 2020, during all those protests and stuff I was quilting these banners because I, I honestly, I, I loved being out there marching with everybody, but it was really intense at some point.

And at some point I was like, what I can offer is some really beautiful stuff, some really beautiful art to contribute to this movement. And so for different organizations and stuff, I was quilting these like really ostentatious banners and it was nice because I was able to like kind of gather a community of people to quilt that stuff with me.

And yeah, so that was back in the day, but now I’m kind of just more so just like taking all the fabrics that I like intuitively trying to put it together into something like maybe it becomes a little landscape, maybe it becomes a face or you know, I’m trying to really kind of refine what that is right now.

So I say that, but that is like kind of a new thing in my life that I’m really trying to invest time into.

David Dylan Thomas: That sounds amazing. I’ve never seen a quilted protest sign or art before. I think that’s amazing. I wanna talk a little bit about that because like, I feel like over the past year working on White Meat for me at least. And some of the other people have told me this, who’ve worked on it is like a form of protest or some, some way to exorcise some of those demons. I don’t know. Like tell me about your experience with using art to protest, to resist, like to play a role in all this.

Azalea Fairley: I really believe that the first layer of figuring out what you’re protesting or what you’re trying to say in this protest. I feel like the first layer of that is always through art. Somebody’s always writing a play about something that is, you know, like a societal ill or something, or somebody’s making a painting or somebody’s making music about it.

And even if you as a person don’t know exactly how you feel and you just feel that something’s off. Something about this piece of art could speak to you and could be speaking exactly what you need to hear and what, and putting words to whatever, you know, societal ill is bothering you. So I really feel like, you know, art is kind of like artists are like the first responders to societal like, and I, I just feel like it’s like really important to kind of figure that stuff out and also further that stuff through art, further the protests and stuff through art, if that makes any sense.

David Dylan Thomas: No, it totally does. And in fact, I love what you said about first responders, ’cause I feel like sometimes they’re even ahead of the curve.

Like I’ve been listening a lot lately to podcasts, talking about some of Stephen King’s eighties work that basically predicts now like the Running Man or stuff like that, where it’s just sort of like, oh yeah, no one would ever do this, that, or the other. It’s, he’s just making a point and then you skip to today and it’s like, oh no, this is exactly what happened.

Octavia Butler like writing way back when, about 2024. And it’s like, oh, she was too accurate about what was gonna happen. Too soon, Octavia.

Azalea Fairley: We needed to chill a little bit.

David Dylan Thomas: But no, and it’s like. It is. And, and I feel like it’s validating ‘cause like there’s a part of, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll speak for myself.

There’s a part of me that feels like, oh, that’s, you know, soft, for lack of a better word. It’s like, you gotta be out there in the streets doing stuff like, with a very vague sense of what doing stuff means. But when I talk to actual activists, right, who are doing the work like that, that when I think of activism is, is, is, is the work like, you know, they are the ones who are saying things like, oh no, we need art. Oh no. Like, you need to figure out what it is you’re good at, like what the resistance needs is for you to figure out what you’re good at and double down on that in the interest of the cause. So that’s been validating at least. So it isn’t just me thinking I’m deluding myself, being like, oh, I’m just making a movie. Right. That’s safe. Right. It’s, no, it’s, you know.

Azalea Fairley: No, it’s all very important I think. I feel like yes, there are places for everybody in the movement. You know, there are those people who can be on the front line every day, all day, be at the megaphone, and that’s wonderful for them.

For me personally, that is not necessarily the way that, you know, of course I will be out there, but that’s not necessarily the way that I always like to protest. There is something really magnificent in being able to look back at those photos from 2020 and be like, wow. Like we were all so united. And me and this group of people got together on this rooftop in Brooklyn and made something really beautiful and it was photographed and like, this is like a moment stamped in time.

Like all these films that are being made about these moments in time are so important to me. All these paintings, it is just like, you know, there are plenty of ways to protest and it does not have to be always on the frontline, you know? All day, every day. Like we need it all from all.

David Dylan Thomas: And I, I, I like what you said about like the moment in time ’cause I do feel like I’m not gonna flatter myself that like White Meat is going to be looked back 20 years from now and be like, yes, that was the protest movie. Right. Like, that’s not. Arrogant for me to say and not for me, not for me to say.  What I will say though is that art that has inspired White Meat was created in a particular time in a particular place to protest a particular thing.

But now that that thing is, now that that time is gone, the art itself is still powerful because it lets us know we’re not alone, right? It lets us know we’re part of a struggle that’s been here. People have faced this before and gotten through it. We can face it as well if people have faced this before and found ways to talk about it meaningfully and create action around it.

So I think about a movie like The Spook Who Sat by the Door, which if you haven’t, are you familiar with this film?

Azalea Fairley: I’m familiar with the book. I’m not familiar with…

David Dylan Thomas: Okay, so the, the, the film of the book, I haven’t actually read the book yet, but the film is phenomenal. I actually wanna go back and read the book, but like that, and for our listeners, this is a book, this is a book and a movie where a Black guy goes to work for the CIA, learns all their tricks, leaves the CIA and teaches those tricks to the hood so that they’re creating a violent Black resistance against the FBI and the army. Like, and this is in the sixties, like this is a film I do not think could get made today, but but that like looking back on that and being like, whoa, this is how far people, this is the kind of stuff people were willing to tackle and, and grapple with. You know, before I was even born. Like, I feel like the, and that, that art got made and we can look at it now. I think it’s important to be able to document those times. Not just for us, but for our descendants, I guess is what I’m saying.

Azalea Fairley: Yeah, for sure. And also I think that, you know, we get to see where people were, what you said about that movie not being able to be made today. That might be true. It’s kind of messed up, but unfortunately, I feel like, you know, there’s so much censorship around art and media now that people weren’t having to deal with back then. They were dealing with different type of censorship and awful things, but it’s just, you know, it’s nice to be able to have that like archive.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Azalea Fairley: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: So shifting a little bit so I’m curious, like, how did you get into wardrobe? How did you, how did you become a, a wardrobe director?

Azalea Fairley: So I got into costume design. I really call it more so costume design.

David Dylan Thomas: Sure, sure, sure.

Azalea Fairley: Or costuming because there’s like elements of all the things. Just to explain to people, because a lot of people don’t know the difference.

Costume design is more so like figuring out the look of the character, figuring out kind of like this background of the character and the motivation of the character in order to put them into clothes that make sense for them. And wardrobe on set is more so making sure that the clothes look exactly as they were designed, making sure that they’re sitting properly, making sure that last looks make sense. Making sure that the blood is in the same place that the blood was through and documenting that.  So both of them are so important. And I have been a part of both.

But I got into costume design specifically, I actually grew up, I’m from New Orleans and I grew up with a mom who was a seamstress. So, you know, she was always making clothes for people. And, you know, New Orleans has a very specific vibe and culture around, I mean like there’s Mardi Gras, there’s like, you know, all the balls and stuff and there’s so much vibrancy and loudness in the way that people dress and the way that people carry themselves.

So, you know, my mom being a seamstress, I really was able to like learn kind of how to sew. And like, not be afraid of like mixing all these different patterns and colors and fabrics and you know, notions and whatnot to make something really beautiful. And so then I kind of went to college and I actually went to school originally for acting.

And when I was in school I actually bought my own sewing machine. And mind you, I did not really know how to sew at the time. I just knew kind of the basics from my mom and being around her and kind of just, you know, pinning, pinning patterns for her or cutting out patterns for her and watching her sew and watching her be really meticulous about her finishing and stuff.

And I just kind of started making clothes for myself because I felt like, what I was able to express when I was in school was different than what I was able to express when I was in high school, where I was wearing uniforms all the time. So I kind of just started experimenting with making clothes.

Some things were really bad in the sense of like construction, do not turn them around. Some things were really cool like, but really it just felt like I was like coming up with my own voice about style while also being in school for acting. And then I started making little things for shows here and there.

Like I’d make a dress for one show or an apron for one show, or somebody would ask me to come in and like kind of style these two or three people and I’m like, okay, that’s fine. And I never really put too and two together that that was what I really wanted to do.

David Dylan Thomas: Right.

Azalea Fairley: So yeah, I kind of just continued acting in Chicago while still making things on the side.

When I moved to New York, I started working in fashion. Because I really just wanted to kind of expand and invest more time into the dressing of everything. And fashion is really exhausting and wonderful. Yeah, and then I was actually a costume intern for one of my friends, Dustin, one of my now friends, Dustin.

And I kind of went on from doing that, which was like sewing for him. Putting buttons on things and making sure that the stuff was coming back from the fabric stores and stuff like that. And then I did wardrobe for that same show and kind of understood like the workings of theater from a like backstage perspective instead of from an actor’s perspective.

And then slowly but surely I kind of came to the realization of like, oh, I really, really, really love the dramaturgy and the work that you can put into a character from costumes from the costumes’ perspective. Because, you know, being, starting as an actor, you have to like, you know, come up with motivations for the character and you know, what, what was happening before for the character and why would the character feel this way about this? Or why is this particular item important to the character? And I feel like with costume design, you can kind of do both of those things because I really do create a character arc for every single person when I’m designing.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Azalea Fairley: Everybody gets a little color palette. Everybody gets so much attention. Even like, you know, background and all that stuff. Everybody gets a lot of attention because every single moment is important for this production and for like the truth of the production. So I just felt like starting off in acting, learning how to really analyze a character and also still having a background in sewing and fashion.

It kind of just like snowballed into me getting into costume design. And yeah, since I wanted to, since I started doing costume design, I just kind of kept going. And I’ve been working in the New York theater scene for a while. I’ve done some films here and there. Yeah. And it’s, you know, something that I’m like still inspired by every single day.

David Dylan Thomas: So I’m curious, like that’s a wonderful story. Thank you for that. I’m, I’m curious, like when you arrived on set and in pre-production, you kind of had a coterie of like, just really cool assistants. Folks, you know working with you. How did, how did that team form? I was always kind of curious.

Azalea Fairley: So the special effects and makeup designer Alfreda Howard, her and I, we go back. We’re collaborators. We’ve been collaborating for years together. And she is actually the person who approached me and she was like, hey, Azalea, I need to introduce you to Dave. And you know, I don’t know if you’d be into this, but this is the project and I think that, you know, that y’all would vibe really well together and whatnot.

And, yeah, so really once I read the script and also read the feature, which is so, so exciting, like yeah, that’s kind of when and also after meeting you and like discussing and everything like that with you that’s kind of when I was able to join. And then as far as like the assistants and stuff go like I said, Fre and I we’re collaborators, so like we already got along really well.

I brought on one of my assistants, Tyler Arnold.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, Tyler was awesome.

Azalea Fairley: They are amazing, right? We’ve been collaborating together for years as well, and. It’s kind of nice when you work together with somebody for so long because then you get like a little shorthand, like you can just, and be like, oh, well you remember the shoop-de-shoop on that one show that we did that one time.

Oh yeah. Okay, let’s do that again. So they’re, you know, an amazing person, an amazing presence to have around, they’re really calming, they’re really, you know, funny and they’re also really good at their job. So it was amazing to have them around. And then we had Trinity, who also was incredible. She was just really good at thinking on her feet and also like, made really smart decisions.

And our team was really small, mind you, it was a lot for, you know such a small team. But we, I think really handled it with grace. And I think that we just had the right people. I mean, me and Tyler, literally, we worked together for so many years. I cannot be I, I cannot be more thankful for them to have like such a great collaborator and then meeting Trinity through this process. Like, I can’t wait to work with Trinity again.

David Dylan Thomas: That’s awesome. Yeah, I, it’s funny you talk about the size of the team ’cause I was talking to someone on set who had worked on Lincoln, the Steven Spielberg film and she was like, oh yeah, the costume department on Lincoln was the size of the entire crew of White Meat: Appetizer.

So going back to like you coming up, so you’re in New Orleans and I can only imagine like the vibe of costuming, like I’ve been to a second line parade and like the costume budget alone for even one of those floats. Right? But like the, the vibrancy of that and I’m curious, like how did the vibe shift going from New Orleans then to Chicago, like then to New York? Like do these places have their own costume vibe or fashion vibe?

Azalea Fairley: Oh, that is a really good question. I would say absolutely. I would say that New Orleans is just so vibrant. So like you cannot tell me I don’t look good. Even if it looks crazy to you, it looks good to me.

So, you know, that’s kind of the vibe of New Orleans and also just like bright, vibrant. And I feel like a lot of trends actually start in New Orleans because it’s so like, it’s so urban and I feel like a lot of the trends that start in urban areas like end up kind of disseminating out to the rest of the country.

And again, like we’re not afraid of pattern, we’re not afraid of color, we are not afraid of like using the craziest stuff, throwing stuff, feathers on it. Like nobody is afraid of that type of stuff. And there’s also the sense of like that old school southern, that church influence as well, like getting dressed up and carrying yourself with so much dignity.

And then for Chicago, I mean I was really, I went to school in Chicago and I was like very much in the hipster era. So that was what my influence was. The hipster blip era, like early 2010’s type vibe. So that’s kind of what I associate Chicago with. If you, if, if you know, like, if you can like name a hipster era type thing, it’s just like hip Midwestern.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Azalea Fairley: Your culture type vibe. Riding bikes all the time. That’s all I did as well. My little messenger bag, like riding bikes, just kind of punky like a little bit.

And then New York is just kind of the mecca of all of that. You really can do anything here. I’m New York based just for people that are listening. But you can really do anything in New York because you can make it here, you can shop it here. If you wanna make something really specific with a specific style of button and a, and, you know, a foiled fabric with, you know a reverse you could just really do anything and you can get it made here and you can shop it here.

Which is not the same for a lot of those other places. I mean, truly the Garment District is like you if you can’t find it in the Garment District, I don’t know if it can be made. I think. Yeah. So New York is really that place where like you can really do anything.

And there’s so many influences here, I mean, just the different cultures, but also the different groups of people. Like, you know, you have whatever Brooklyn is bringing to the table. Then you have the queers, then you have the dolls, then you have, you know, the Black people, then you have the Dominican community. Then you have all the, like, just all of this mixing comes together in such a beautiful, interesting way in New York City.

And I feel like you can really just try anything and then walk out the next day and be completely different. And guess what? Nobody cares. Like, because nobody, like, there’s so much to pay attention to, to that like you don’t have to be self-conscious about experimenting or making mistakes. You know, you can really like grow a lot here.

So yeah, I feel like style-wise they all have something very, like particular and different that they bring to the table. I wouldn’t say like one is like better than the other. They’re all just different. They’re all amazing. They’re all different.

David Dylan Thomas: But clearly New Orleans is the best. Anyway. No, I’m just kidding.

No, it’s, when I think about different styles, I think it’s more like for me, ’cause I’ve been, I’ve been to New Orleans quite a bit and like I think for me, when I think about vibe, I’ll put it that way. I feel like the New Orleans vibe is the most fun of those three. I mean, they’re all amazing.  But there is something just so alive about the visual, whether it’s architecture or clothing or just anything visible. Right. I feel like New Orleans has this really special aliveness, and I like what you said about dignity too. Like this all dignified but fun if that’s a thing, right?

But I wanna talk a bit about White Meat. So for those of you who’ve seen Appetizer, great. You’ll know what we’re talking about. For those of you who haven’t, this will hopefully make you wanna see it. But so you created some great looks. There are really two kinds of looks you created for White Meat. One was kind of the modern style of kind of the people in the cafe. So you have these people in the cafe, and then you have these zombies who are old timey from like the 1790’s coming back.

So there’s two kind of distinct costume styles, and I gotta say the one that, for me, having seen the movie a bunch of times now, that stands out the most, that I’m the most happy with, look-wise. And this is a combination of costume, special effects, choreography, all these things is Phyllis. So Phyllis is what we called on set the, the revenge of Aunt Jemima.

She’s this, she’s played by this wonderful dancer, name’s Mawu, but she’s this, you know tiny little Black lady, right, who’s dressed up in old timey servant’s clothes, so to speak. But her look like, I haven’t told you this, but her look is so good and her whole vibe, like, I wanna do a spinoff series of just her going around killing people.

Like she’s like a, a, a new slasher. Right. I feel like she’s, she could be an iconic slasher. So, but I wanna talk to you about your contribution to that. Like what were your, kind of, tell me about your process going through, okay, we have this character. She’s a Black woman, come back from the dead, eating people.

How do you go from just that? Because in the screenplay there’s very little detail about anything more than that. She is a woman. She is a zombie. She’s eating people. She’s from the 1790s. It’s about all you have to go on. How do you go from that to this very realized, very concrete, know her when I see her kind of character look?

Azalea Fairley: Well from the page to the screen there’s a lot of research in between there.  And for that, I, for all of those kind of old timey characters, those period characters I was researching moreso like Philly 1800’s, but also like seeing what the rest of the country was doing around that time. Seeing what Black people looked like around the rest of the country.

And specifically for Phyllis, you know, because these people have died they’re likely buried in their best. They’re not just buried in whatever. Right. And these people also had dignity too. So for her look and for the rest of the period, zombies too, they have their own character arcs that we also worked on together too.

But, for her, I remember thinking to myself, I want her to look like she works, but I also want her to not look like a zombie. Like how do I explain this? I think that there’s a difference between workwear that is worn and workwear that is you know, toe up. And what was important to me is like, you know, hey, these people, they worked really hard. They had a lot of pride. Yes. Maybe her, you know, apron was a little bit worn at the ends. Maybe there was a little patch here and there. Maybe the fabric was just washed again and again and again. But. It’s still, she still was put together.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah.

Azalea Fairley: And then for her, the actor, I mean, she’s really, really tiny, and I was like, wow. Like we have to do like so many alterations to just get it to work with her size-wise because she’s like 4’ 11” or something like that. And then, you know, like with the distressing and the dirt, it kind of felt like they. It’s not like the zombies that are like getting out and they’re like completely covered in blood and mud and, you know, filthy whatever. It’s like they’re getting out as if they’re just dusting a little bit of dirt off their coffins. So that’s kind of what went into the overall look.

And then for Phyllis specifically. Let me see. It’s so funny. She has a really funny story behind one of her costumes actually. So we, the turnaround was so tight with getting those costumes purchased and then distressed by our distressor and then getting them all down to Philly and just having them all in Philly at the same time so that we didn’t have to think about anything.

And we did twice the amount of distressing, but for her. Only one of the skirts came in.  And then we just were like, okay, we’ll just do this. And so we’re opening up all the distressed stuff and we’re taking out all of these doubles of everything and the only thing missing was her skirt we’re like, wait a minute.

So we hit up the distressor in New York and we’re like, Hey, do you happen to have a spirit that we could like FedEx overnight? And she was like, no, I really don’t. Like, I really think that I gave you everything. And I was like, okay, cool. That’s fine. I’m just thinking like maybe in Penn Station, like maybe on the handoff there was something that like fell or something.

I don’t know. Whatever happened, we were like, okay, well we have this other skirt on the rack that is a completely different color from what we originally designed for her and originally like distressed for her. But you know what? We gonna have to do what we have to do because we don’t have this one and we have to make it work as a double. We have to make it work clean and get bloody and then get it clean again, and then get it bloody again. And we just have to make it work. So Tyler and I actually went through and like distressed and like sandpapered and like dirt distressed, everything that needed to be distressed.

We like did like a little coffee stain. We filled the coffee, we filled a bucket with coffee from the hotel and like,

David Dylan Thomas: I never knew that. Oh my God.

Azalea Fairley: It was so much. And it was like two in the morning. We’re like filling a bucket with coffee from the hotel, hoping that the guy doesn’t, you know, doesn’t take a look at us.

And we’re just like, we gotta do what we gotta do. And so we like fill the bucket with coffee. We like dip the skirt. We kind of tone it down a little bit. We let it dry in the shower and then we dirt distress it and sandpaper it the next day. And then once we put it on Mawu, I was like, oh my God. It actually works perfectly.

It’s, this was supposed to be the skirt the whole time. So it’s so funny how like in costumes sometimes that stuff ha, I mean, everywhere in film that happens. But like specifically in costumes, I’m like, these costumes took so much effort to just get here. Like the purchasing, the fitting, the sending it to the disstressor, that, getting it to the distressor of getting from the distressor.

Getting it to Philly and then for us to have to do something entirely new the night before at do. Yeah. That was crazy.

David Dylan Thomas: That is, and it’s so funny too, like the things you don’t think about as a filmgoer.  Right. And I’ll tell you, I mean, I think I told you, I told you this at the time. This was my first time where I had enough budget to actually have departments. So we, this is my first film where we actually had a costume department, actually had a makeup department and all that. And like when you’re making movies like, or when you’re watching movies, it doesn’t occur to you. Oh, right. You don’t just have one version of a costume for a character.

Right. Especially if it’s an action movie or any kind of movie where something’s gonna happen to those clothes, you know, a before and an after, you know, backup and blah, blah blah. And it’s like even that first conversation, it’s like, okay, so we’re gonna need two, two copies of two copies of these costumes.

I’m like. Two copies, and then it’s like, oh, right, of course.  Like when you, when you, when you flip from being a viewer to being, oh, I need to make this thing, all of a sudden all the, the rest of the iceberg becomes apparent.

Azalea Fairley: Yeah. I mean, especially with film, because, you know, you’re shooting, I don’t even remember how we shot. But we obviously shot out of order ’cause that’s.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Azalea Fairley: But you know. Your first film, your first scene that you’re shooting might be the bloodiest scene.

David Dylan Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Azalea Fairley: All the next scenes are gonna be the clean scenes. So you have to have like, you have to be able to work with that.

Yeah. And in film particularly, which is so different from theater, like in theater, it, you know, in the show if it gets bloody and you’re still on stage, I guess you’re still in a bloody garment. But in film, you really have to prepare for all of those moments. I mean, the amount of doubles and triples, and then if you have something like that happen, like with the skirt, you really have to think on your feet.

And I feel like that as artists and as creatives, like we know that that happens. A lot of people who watch films don’t understand that there’s so much that goes into the process and so many new surprises and things that could happen. You know, it’s. It’s, it’s fun.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, and it’s, it’s in a way that’s like our job. That’s the magic trick, right?  To make it look like, oh. They just walked to work like that. And then we filmed it and then they went home. Like it’s that linear, you know?

Azalea Fairley: And then like, hey, the blood is on the skirt and now we have one skirt, so we actually have to wash it.

David Dylan Thomas: Yep. And the shooting schedule has to align.

Yeah. There’s, so it’s, so I feel like, I don’t know, like I’ve been think in the past few years, I’ve been thinking more and more about the idea of interdependence. Like, you know, just globally. But I feel like a film set is a great place to learn interdependence. ‘Cause to your point, it’s like, okay, the costume limitation affects the shooting schedule, affects the, this affects the that, and like it all ties together and one thing out of balance could mean you’re just basically sitting around burning daylight while this one thing needs to happen. Right. I mean that’s, I, I wanna have our, our ad on, ’cause that our assistant director of Benae, like, ’cause that was her magic trick, was keeping that all in her head and knowing, okay, three hours from now because of this problem, three hours from now, that’s gonna have to happen so that now needs to move to two hours from now. And and I’m like, you are on some other level shit.

Azalea Fairley: Yeah, they were really amazing.

David Dylan Thomas: So I wanna ask you the other like specific White Meat thing I wanted to ask you about. So, so I was there at kind of the initial costume fitting, and so the main zombie character, his name is Isaac, and the whole last, you know, third of the film is he, he’s really important to, and his look is kind of iconic too.

And what made his look was the cap. And I want to talk to you about this. ’cause I remember being there when we were kind of looking, trying on different looks. And at some point, as soon as he puts this cap on, it’s like a little like newsboy page cap kind of thing. As soon as he put that on, I’m like, boom, that’s Isaac. We found him.

Like tell me about, tell me about that in particular, but like, like just, I don’t know, that process of finding like the one thing that goes from being like generic 1790’s, whatever to, oh no, that is Isaac. I’d know him anywhere like. How do you, how did, how did that happen for the cap and then like is that a thing that you commonly run into where it’s like, oh yeah, this one little thing made the costume go from being generic costume to like, this is that person.

Azalea Fairley: Oh, yeah. All the time. That happens all the time. And specifically with these costumes, because we really only see them in one look. We don’t get any background about them except for what they tell us, you know? And we’re depending a lot on what they’re telling us, but as well as like what they look like to tell us more about who they are. 

So for Isaac, I feel like his costume was also dependent on everybody else’s costume, specifically within the period people’s and, you know, for the Phyllis costume you know, that’s a femme character. There’s their own world right there. They have their own special background, you know, whatnot.

And then for Isaac, the cap came about because we were, I remember I was trying to figure out Absalom, that character and what makes him so special. And we were like, how can we like bring a little like cuteness and dandiness and sweetness to this character? And for him, that was like the little wilted flower pin.

And then for Isaac, you know. Because the actor is so, like, you know, such a, such a powerful presence, I really felt like there had to be something like, it’s so easy to have him look powerful. But also like, how do we bring like a little chill to this? You know, like, how do we bring like maybe a little unc, I don’t know, like, and so that’s where the cap came in.

And for us, because we were kind of like, you know, spitballing these ideas, but within like the framework of it has to be period. We kind of got all these like little accessories that could work. You know, we did talk about the cap. We tried to figure out the costume first before adding the cap, but really then the costume kind of developed around the cap.

So I feel like in costuming it always, for me at least, it always happens where like, if you only get one chance to see this person and they only get one look. You do have to get to a point where you’re like, no, this is who the person is and this one little particular minute thing alongside all these other big things is what really like, is the cherry on top.

And yeah, for Isaac, it was definitely that cap and it was fun too because we were able to see something, new when you did a closeup on his face, you know, he had something to play with. There was something new to distress up top. There was something new to get blood on. Yeah, there was like something really sweet and being able to like have something new to play with or something you could look at.

Or frame him with even.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The silhouette, right? Like that becomes, you know, I, that that’s how something becomes iconic, is that like, okay, even if I just see a silhouette, I know who that is.  And I, but I love, it’s, this is only occurring to me just now. What I love about that detail is because he’s a zombie and he’s coming straight from the grave, that means he was buried in that cap.

Azalea Fairley: Correct.

David Dylan Thomas: Right. Like that cap was what? Like that was Isaac’s cap.  Like when you see a guy coming and he is wearing the cap, you’re like, Isaac coming. Like, you know, in the neighborhood, he was known by that cap. And so when they buried him, it’s like you gotta bury him with the cap. Right. So like that and again, that is, it’s. That one item is telling you a whole story. It’s telling you all this interesting lore about the character without literally writing it down and saying, hey, here’s this guy who used to wear a cap all the time, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so I love the, I love the kind of like lore that can be communicated just by a wardrobe choice. 

Azalea Fairley: And then also, even with the distressing of it too, it’s like there’s a little patch there because this was his favorite cap. So yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of like really interesting little details, which I think in costume design you know, sometimes you notice. Oftentimes people don’t, but when you do notice, it feels like a really special little secret that you have.

David Dylan Thomas: Yeah, totally. I love stuff like that. Yeah. So I wanna close out by asking you about your heroes of costume design. Who are some of your idols? Who are some of your inspirations in that world?

Azalea Fairley: Well, I mean, I feel like I just have to mention number one, the queen mother. Ms. Ruth E. Carter.

David Dylan Thomas: Of course. We got, we got an exhibit of her work at the African American Museum in Philly going in right now. I gotta go check out. I’ve seen it before though. In, in other places. It’s a, it’s, yes, the queen.

Absolutely.

Azalea Fairley: I, I just saw that that exhibit was going to Philly because I was looking her up the other day. Because you know, it’s award season and whatnot. And I was looking her up the other day and I was like, oh my God, we are born a day apart. I mean, many years apart, but she, her birthday is the day before mine.

But anyway, so I was looking her up and I noticed that her exhibit is going to Philly. So I’m like, hey, I gotta make a special trip, yo.

David Dylan Thomas: Let me know. We’ll get coffee. Like, I wanna, I wanna go to this thing.

Azalea Fairley: I will. Yeah, let’s go. So yeah, I just think that she is really the queen mother in the sense of like, she has worked for so long and worked so hard and like had the right collaborators and the right directors and the right performers and just has like honed her craft and you know, and listening to her background. She also didn’t start off as a costume designer. She also started off as an actor.

So, then she kind of like, you know, also was a person who just kind of made her own clothes and stuff. Not that I’m trying to like, follow in her footsteps. I just was realizing like, oh, there’s like, it’s so funny how like sometimes you just fall into what you’re supposed to be doing.

And you dedicate yourself to it and get better at it, and then you keep doing it. So yeah, her, I also really love Paul Taswell. I’ve worked on Hamilton before. I was an assistant costume designer on that. And working with him was really incredible. Like he is just, I call him like a really sophisticated, like one of the most sophisticated costume designers I’ve ever worked with because you can tell that he has a background in fine arts because of like his approach to color and texture.

He’s just a really fine hand and a really fine eye. Another person that I really love. Oh my God, I forget her name, but the person who designed costumes for Frankenstein. I keep looking at that movie and just finding something new.

David Dylan Thomas: The the new one?

Azalea Fairley: Yeah.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh my God. Yeah.

Azalea Fairley:  She did her thing, she did her big one with that.

Oh my God. And you know, I looked at the movie, I looked at her, some of the research and stuff. I kind of looked at like old, like little reels of, you know the. original Frankenstein and whatnot, and see, and I saw like where her, some of her influences came from, and just to see like the ways that she distilled that into this 2025 version.

I thought that that was really sophisticated and I really, you know, I’d like to listen to a lot of these people too, and I was listening about how she collaborated with Guillermo del Toro and just-

David Dylan Thomas: Kate. Kate Hawley is her name. I just wanted to give her her flowers. ’cause it’s, it is, it is like the one thing, like I won’t go off on this too much ’cause we’ll never end, but it is the one thing where like, if it won costume design over Sinners, I’d be okay.

Like, there’s very few awards I don’t want Sinners to get, but that is the one place where I’d be like, you know what?

Azalea Fairley: Yeah. Against one another because you know, I’m always rooting for Ruth Carter You’re right. Like I, I honestly, I agree.  

David Dylan Thomas: Because those outfits, like just the, the Frankenstein look alone is so innovative and yet so appropriate to the theme to the like, and that’s Del Toro’s trick, right? Is he’s able to, to go to anywhere in history and make it both of the period and modern at the same time. Like that’s this whole aesthetic and the costume design on that just so perfectly fits that.

Azalea Fairley: I completely agree, and I mean, just you could tell that there was like such communication and collaboration between the production designer, the costume designer, the director, the DP, like just everybody was on the same page.

And I feel like you can see that masterpiece right there. And I mean, not just, not only Frankenstein, not only the bride of Frankenstein, we we’re not calling her that, but not only her costumes, but also just all the background people.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh my God. His dad’s cape? Are you kidding me?

Azalea Fairley: I could go on just a visual feast.

David Dylan Thomas: Well, and that, and that, not to put too fine point on it, but like. Del Toro’s Frankenstein is sexy. It is a horny Frankenstein movie. It is. And, and, and Oscar, I mean. He is not, I’ll put it this way, he’s not wasting the fact that he is got Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi as leads. Right. And the costume design is not wasting that fact at all.

That like red leather almost S&M thing that that doc, that Victor Frankenstein’s got going on.

Azalea Fairley: That’s what tells you so much about where his mind is at.

David Dylan Thomas: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Azalea Fairley: Yeah. That is like truly like the beauty of costume design right there, like you, that you could just do a class on that film actually.

David Dylan Thomas: Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure. I thank you Azalea so much for working on the film first off, but also for your time today, like just helping us talk about all this and understand your craft better. If people want to learn more about you, get in touch, what have you,   what’s the best place to find out more about your work?

Azalea Fairley: Well actually the best place to find out more about my work is I update my Instagram quite often. It’s at Ziggy bombastic, Z-I-G-G-Y, bombastic. And then I also have my website, azalea-fairley.com. Yeah, and that’s where you can go to find out more about me and more about all the upcoming goodies.

David Dylan Thomas: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I hope we get to work together again real soon. And for the White Meat Podcast, this is David Dylan Thomas, and we will see you next time.

Azalea Fairley: Yes. Thanks Dave. Talk soon.