Post by desantis+mwilcox@♫.ws

Clothing, desire, and agency

Hormazábal’s role was to costume the young women (including Roth’s then-wife Lorenza Izzo) whose appearance and sexuality drive the plot of Knock Knock. In The Shape of Water, Elisa’s wardrobe is deliberately muted and thrift-oriented at first—she blends into the institutional world—then gains red accents that mark emerging strength and desire. The film repeatedly frames clothing (and its absence or transformation) as part of how the mute heroine expresses herself and bonds with the non-human. The parallel places two “Elisas” on opposite sides of the costume process: one designs the clothes that shape seductive or vulnerable female presentation; the other is defined by the clothes she wears and the private world they help construct.