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How ‘Back to Black’ Recreated Amy Winehouse’s Look

In the biopic “Back to Black,” Marisa Abela wears some of the singer’s actual clothes, but the hair and makeup team chose to tone the signature beehive down.

Few looks are as distinctive as Amy Winehouse’s was. The singer’s sweeping eyeliner, tottering heels and disheveled beehive are still instantly recognizable, 13 years after her death.

In the new biopic “Back to Black,” Marisa Abela plays the star from the beginning of her music career until her final days. She wears mini skirts with girlish ruffles and small kitten heels to begin with, before adopting her distinctive pinup aesthetic as she dives deeper into the music industry and her self-destructive habits.

Peta Dunstall, left, the makeup and hair designer for “Back to Black,” working on Abela’s hair on set. Dean Rogers/Focus Features

The film takes its title from Winehouse’s second album, and “when we get to ‘Back to Black’ Amy, it’s more sexy,” the film’s costume designer, PC Williams, said. “There was a big change in the way she presented.”

To recreate this, the production team studied many real-life images of Winehouse. But there were also some intentional changes: They were making “a piece of cinema as opposed to creating a documentary,” Williams said. Here is a closer look at the process.

Abela as Amy Winehouse in “Back to Black.”Dean Rogers/Focus Features
The real Amy Winehouse performing at the Riverside Studios in London 2008.Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images for NARAS

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Source: Movies - nytimes.com


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