How the costume designer of ‘I Love Boosters’ brought color back to Hollywood

FastCompany: In the world of I Love Boosters , color reigns supreme. The new film from writer-director Boots Riley follows a group of boosters—shoplifters who resell their stolen clothes—led by aspiring fashion designer Corvette (Keke Palmer). They run amok in a surrealist, color-blocked version of San Francisco, wreaking havoc on a chain of department stores where each location is entirely monochrome. “Color is so key, because it helps create worlds,” Shirley Kurata, I Love Boosters ‘ costume designer, tells Fast Company .

The Oscar-nominated costume designer keeps finding herself depicting the multiverse: For the Best Picture-winning 2022 movie Everything Everywhere All at Once , she costumed characters across dimensions, from the muted realism of everyday life on Earth to a chaotic mishmash of colors and patterns for the film’s mind-bending finale. Shirley Kurata and Boots Riley [Photo: courtesy Neon] Though there’s no dimension-hopping in I Love Boosters , the movie still has clear-cut worlds.

There’s the vibrant but corporate monochrome of the Metro Designers department stores, each with its own signature color applied to the walls, the wares, and even the employees. There’s the behind-the-scenes world of villain Christie Smith’s fashion brand, including a Chinese factory where workers are subjected to brutal conditions for next to no pay. And there are the eccentric disguises of the movie’s titular boosters, who embrace different eras and aesthetics to avoid detection. [Photo: courtesy Neon] “There’s multiple worlds in both Everything Everywhere All at Once and I Love Boosters ,” Kurata says.

“To separate that, I think color is the first thing that really shows that. And so it was probably one of the most important things for me in terms of costume design.” [Photo: courtesy Neon] Hollywood going gray When the first teaser for I Love Boosters hit social media in January, the internet was immediately obsessed with the film’s in-your-face color scheme.

The most liked comment on the movie’s trailer on YouTube reads, “Nice to see that someone remembers that colours exist!!!” From Kurata’s costumes to the production design by Christopher Glass and cinematography by Natasha Braier, I Love Boosters offers a stark contrast to the dominant color scheme of modern Hollywood—or rather, the lack thereof. [Photo: courtesy Neon] Moviegoers are apparently fed up with films that verge on grayscale, whether it’s due to lighting, color grading, or production design.

Take the reaction to the trailer for Disney’s upcoming live-action Moana remake , which social media users said “sucked up all the color” from the original animated film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has long been criticized for its flat color palettes, with video essays with titles like “Why Do Marvel’s Movies Look Kind of Ugly?” racking up millions of views. Even films with fantastical settings, like the two-part Wicked series’ famously technicolor world of Oz, have caught flak for being strangely desaturated. [Photo: courtesy Neon] “I always love being part of something that’s an exception to the rule,” Kurata says.

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The article discusses a significant trend in visual storytelling that could influence branding strategies in the film industry, making it impactful and relevant, while the focus on color as a strategic tool adds a novel perspective.