Welcome to Derry’ Costume Designer on Pennywise’s Red Outfit

“It: Welcome to Derry” costume designer Luis Sequeira had previously created the wet, bloody search for “Carrie,” so he already understood what it might take to recreate it for Stephen King’s killer demon clown.

Or no less than he thought he did. Having worked on the film “It: Chapter Two,” he was already accustomed to the universe.

Within the season finale of “Welcome to Derry,” Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) is seen hibernating in human stays, soaking in blood. The unnerving image, nonetheless, is of him emerging in all his bloody glory in a red outfit. To retain that visual storytelling element, Sequeira needed to indicate wear, tear, and patina. “For those who literally wet something, you lose that patina. It’s just dark,” he told Variety.

Here, he breaks down the method behind the red outfit look, and creating Periwinkle’s clown look and inserting easter eggs that nod to Pennywise’s universe.

Pennywise’s Red Outfit

Step one involved extensive experimenting and camera testing with the show’s key textile artist, Alex Goldman. “It was attempting to determine what version of Pennywise we were going to begin with, and whether it was going to be the classic gray color and work from there, or whether we were going to maneuver right into a red color.”

The method became a side hustle because the pair worked with various color samples, but they kept running into problems. “Every part that was done was being lost.”

In the long run, they decided to go along with red because the backdrop of the costume. The method involved stenciling all of the pattern pieces, pre-staining them, and adding dragon skin silicone, a robust and stretchy mold material, which was painted with glue gel to provide it that wet look. “It’s a quick-curing product, and we needed to be very fast.”

In total, Pennywise’s red costume was made up of 135 pattern pieces. “It’s stitched down in stripes, and every stripe is a separate component,” Sequeira says. The flexibleness was improved after Skarsgård mentioned that, while playing the character within the movies, the costume lacked flexibility. Since Pennywise needed to be physically energetic, Sequeira introduced an underlying stretch component so Skarsgård could extend his arms and perform extreme poses. “There’s a little bit give for comfort,” Sequeira adds.

Periwinkle the Clown

Sequeira was also fascinated by the character of Periwinkle. In episode 6, it’s revealed that Ingrid Kersh (Madeline Stowe) is the one who has been stalking Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) and her friends as her alter ego, “Periwinkle the Clown.” All Ingrid/Periwinkle wants is to be reunited together with her father, Bob Grey, aka the unique Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

He checked out how the character had a longing aspect. The character appears as a toddler, Ingrid and Periwinkle. When Ingrid/Pennywise is a toddler, Sequeira used silk, a material that was tied to the “Pennywise universe.”

In a single scene, where Periwinkle is within the shadows, showrunner Andy Muschietti and Sequeira talked about how they wanted viewers to think it was Pennywise. Sequeira says, “We added this whole belted element to provide us that silhouette that was not a part of the childhood costume.”

Sequeira sprinkled in a little bit easter egg elements into her outfits through different timelines that nodded to Pennywise. “It was gray, and we added a little bit little bit of red.”