Olivier Bériot (‘Franklin’ costume designer): ‘I’ve never had the opportunity to do such a big piece in Paris’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Costume designer Olivier Bériot might have had an advantage when designing the looks in “Franklin,” the Apple TV+ limited series about Benjamin Franklin‘s (Michael Douglas) negotiations with the French during the height of the American Revolution. The French-born designer was going to be designing costumes for a series that takes place in France, was shot on location in France and features giants in both French and American culture. “I really enjoyed doing this job because I’ve never had the opportunity to do such a big piece in Paris, because everything was shooting in and around Paris, which makes my work extremely comfortable,” he exclaims. Watch more of our exclusive video chat with Bériot above.

Bériot designed each character differently and did painstaking research to creates looks that meshed with the characters. “I go deep into the story of each character,” he explains. “I discover many things of the story of each character and that helped me to create the character differently.”

Bériot particularly creating the looks for the character of Franklin’s grandson Temple (Noah Jupe), who endures a great deal of turmoil in becoming his own man. “At the beginning, the teenage grandson is on his way to adulthood,” says Bériot. Temple begins the show dressed very similarly to his grandfather. Bériot describes how the character’s experiences in France shape Temple, and how the costumes reflected the character’s inner journey. “The story basically says that in France, you’re not a real man if you’re not bald, curled, accessorized, which is exactly the gender fluidity of today. So the character of Temple was really fun to create because he really had to travel between the eight episodes.”

“Franklin” also provided Bériot with the opportunity to design costumes for dignitaries from French, British, Scottish and American histories. He used sports as a metaphor for the gamesmanship between all sides. “I treat them like sports teams so the spectator could recognize which nationalities are on screen,” he explains. “I always try to make a reference to today to help the audience to have a sensibility of the character and remind them of something of today. But I really treat them like sports teams and I enjoy doing it.”

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