12/100: Beetlejuice (1988)
Posthumous cigarettes, Japanese designer, and the mainstreaming of goth
Beetlejuice (1988)
Costumes by: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Directed by: Tim Burton
This movie may be for you if: your goth phase never really ended, you like to style your clothes the “wrong” way, and you’ve ever spent time considering what outfit your ghost would wear.
Where to watch: HBO Max
Costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers is best known her work on Return of the Jedi (1983), but I’d argue that her costumes for Beetlejuice had an even bigger impact on fashion and pop culture. The movie was Rodger’s second time working with Tim Burton, following her collaboration with the director on his 1985 debut film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.
While doing my research for this piece, I kept coming across references to a 2015 interview with Rodgers for Elle Magazine. The article seems to have been replaced, as all of the existing links to the interview instead bring you to a different Elle piece from 2024. I’ve pieced together what I can from the interview through secondary sources, though I’m really annoyed that (despite hours of hunting) I couldn’t actually find the original story.
Though I generally refrain from relying too heavily on indirect sources, I wasn’t able to find any other interviews with Rodgers about her work on this project, and the commentary referenced was consistent across multiple sources.
Beetlejuice opens with Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), the quintessential 1980’s couple. Their clothes are unremarkably on-trend, sweet and modest, their normie attire acting as a foil for the unfolding supernatural shenanigans. Rodgers modeled Barbara’s look around the Laura Ashley style, with floral prairie dresses custom made for Davis’ six foot frame.
Beetlejuice often floods the screen in color, casting rich blue and vivid green against a repeated graphic black-and-white motif. Adam wears the most unassuming version of it as a homey buffalo plaid, subtly matching Betelgeuse (and The Sandworm) in jarring stripes. Most scenes include a discordant splash of red, sometimes as subtle as a swipe of vermillion lipstick.
Beetlejuice earned artists Ve Neill, Steve La Porte, and Robert Short the 61st Academy Award for Best Makeup. Over $1 million of the movie’s total $15 million budget was spent on the film’s striking visual effects - despite the hefty bill, the effects were purposely staged to mimic the style of the cheap B movies Burton loved as a child.
Some of the most memorable use of makeup and effects appear in the afterlife, where we meet spirits like a suicidal beauty queen and a magician’s assistant (after a trick gone horribly wrong). The Maitland’s case worker, Juno (Sylvia Sidney), exhales her ghostly cigarette smoke out of a wound across her neck. The afterlife of Beetlejuice presents purgatory as bureaucracy, where spirits linger around a waiting room in the outfits they were wearing when they died.
Beetlejuice’s namesake sleazeball, brought to life by Michael Keaton, only clocks around 17 minutes of actual screen time. Despite his relatively brief appearances, every minute is fully utilized. Keaton recalls his time as Betelgeuse as one of his favorite roles, including his input for the character’s iconic final look. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Keaton said “I went to the makeup artist, Ve Neill, and said, ‘I want mold on my face. My hair has to look like I stuck my finger in an electric socket.’ She came up with the eyes, Tim had the idea of the striped suit, and I said, ‘These are his teeth. This is his skin.’”
The unexpected star of Beetlejuice was a relatively unknown actress, 15-year-old Winona Ryder. Her portrayal of the “strange and unusual” Lydia Deetz would catapult her to instant fame, leading to a career full of similarly dark parts in movies like Heathers (1989) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). British Vogue referred to Ryder as “Fashion’s Original Goth Girl” in a 2023 piece, and though fashion historians (and goths!) would strongly dispute that title, Lydia Deetz can be credited with bringing goth style to a wider audience.
Lydia felt distinctive but genuine, her charm likely due to Ryder’s own input on her teenage character. Her mournful black clothing and spiky hair were inspired by the earlier goth stylings of artists like Siouxsie Sioux and The Cure, but with a youthful levity that has since garnered a cult reverence. Rodgers brought Ryder along to shop at American Rag in LA, working together to bring Lydia to life. “Winona looked at one rack; I looked at another, and then I would say, ‘Here, try this on. Try that on,’” she told Elle.
“In the final scene of the film, Winona decided to wear her school outfit with that petticoat on underneath all by herself,” Rodgers said. “That was her idea. I think she probably even brought that in herself.”
Despite going out of her way to wear all black, Lydia is best remembered by many for the bright red dress for her reluctant wedding. Rodgers pitched the idea to Burton as a dress to match Barbara’s poofy white gown, with all of the lace and tulle, but custom made in red. Rodgers found Barbara’s “outrageous and stupid” dress at Brenda’s Bridal in Downtown LA, and told Elle that its custom red counterpart was actually a quinceañera dress.
While Betelgeuse and Lydia might be the fan favorites, I think the true fashion icon of the film is actually Catherine O’Hara as Delia Deetz.
Delia is an art world clout chaser, preoccupied with aesthetics to the point of obsession. She’s consistently in character, fully dressed and accessorized regardless of how mundane the task.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to 1-800-VINTAGE to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.