How the Michael Costume Designer Recreated Jackson’s World Through Fashion

Two things can be true. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, and he was also complicated. After a series of delays and even additional edits, the highly anticipated biopic Michael debuts in theaters to add more color to the American dynasty that is the Jackson family. The movie introduces you to a younger Jackson and his brothers during their humble beginnings in Gary, Indiana, and brings you on their quest for fame in the music industry, also rushing you through the captivating journey Jackson had reinventing himself as a solo artist, experimenting with different sounds and messages through his lyrics, and becoming one of the greatest entertainers of our lifetime.

While the movie may stop short of his later career and accusations of child molestation (which he denied when he was alive), the costuming displayed is a full reminder of Jackson’s indelible impact on culture. Vanity Fair spoke with the costume designer for the movie, Marci Rodgers, who had the heavy task of recreating Jackson’s world through fashion. Rodgers, no stranger to working with real-life characters and fictional ones, was the costume designer for Till, Passing, BlacKkKlansman, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and the TV series She’s Gotta Have It, to name just a few.

In Michael, Jaafar Jackson wears a replication of one of his uncle’s all-time unforgettable looks, from when he took home 8 Grammy Awards in 1984 with his Thriller album.

Courtesy of Lionsgate

Whether it was showing the singer as a young boy performing with his brothers in colorful ’70s attire on American Bandstand and The Ed Sullivan Show or including moments of Jackson maneuvering through crowds of passionate fans wearing an array of military-inspired jackets or plaid shirts, Rodgers did not miss key details in making you feel like you were watching Jackson himself.

One might think that when working on a film of this caliber, one could rely on dipping into the singer’s archive, but that was not the case here. Rodgers recreated everything. “From the socks to the gloves, I mean everything. Essentially, what Jaafar [Jackson] put on would be no different from the day that Michael Jackson put on that garment. I studied the research. I would literally compare not just what was in my book, but I also had old archives of Jet magazines. Any and everything that I could find at the time that might have had a clear picture of Michael and his brothers that would inform my final decision when it came to recreating all of the garments.”

Marci Rodgers told Vanity Fair, “the devil is in the details,” when recreating every single look for the movie.

Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: What did it feel like to get the call to do costume design for Michael?

Marci Rodgers: Taking a step back, I remember when I was a graduate student at University of Maryland, I remember then saying that I was going to costume-design a movie on Emmett Till. During that moment, I believe I was doing a play in Atlanta on Nina Simone. And that’s when I came across the book [The] King of Style, which describes and basically walks through the looks of Michael Jackson’s wardrobe, and [said] to myself, I’m going to costume-design a movie on Michael Jackson. That was maybe five to seven years ago. Fast-forward, so when I got the call to do Michael, I was outside of my parents’ home in Illinois. First, I had a moment [to myself], and then the way that I announced it to my family was, I actually didn’t tell them right away, but I ordered Michael Jackson T-shirts and gave the shirts to them.

And I’m sure they were extremely excited?

To be honest, I don’t know. [Laughs] I think they were. My family kind of has a second degree of separation, because my father grew up in Gary. So a lot of my trajectory in film, it’s all kismet. So of course they were excited, and then it was time to focus and really dive into the research, which was my first step.

The Jackson brothers, as depicted in Michael, in futuristic fashion during their Victory tour in 1984 after Michael’s Pepsi commercial accident.

Kevin Mazur/Lionsgate

Do you have a favorite part of your entire process?

I think for Michael, his life was so public that, yes, it is very interesting to study photos or looks of Michael, but you have to pay attention to the details. My research book was over 800 pages. So it wasn’t like I just went to Google and just looked up photos. I literally went down a rabbit hole. Not only did I do that, I went and visited any and everywhere that I could lay my human eyes on his clothes so that I can see the texture of the clothes, like the Thriller jacket. Or, you know, I can see the texture and the fabric that was used at that time of the Bad jacket. I had a measuring tape and I was literally measuring the buckles, like how wide the buckles were, how long the buckles were, and looking at the rhinestones of the socks. Trust and believe. I mean, obviously, as a Michael Jackson fan and knowing that I signed up to help be a part of communicating and telling his story from an artist’s standpoint or a costume-design standpoint, I was very, very, very calculated when it came to certain things and replicating what I could replicate, almost identical, just based on what was available fabric- and notion-wise and what we were filming.

Do you keep these books when you’re done with your projects?

[Laughs] Yes and no. Obviously, I do have a copy of it or a digital copy of it.

This sounds like such a very special process that people don’t even think about how detail-specific it becomes with costume design.

I think particularly for this person. On the topic of Michael, he had different phases of his look, right? Obviously, we have the Jackson 5, and then we have that ’60s, ’70s, ’80s version of himself.

On the toes of history, Michael debuted his signature moonwalk dance on March 25, 1983 for the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. His nephew, Jaafar Jackson recreated the scene.

Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

Going from Off the Wall to Thriller is completely different.

Correct. And then you have after the Pepsi commercial, which is like a reformation of him, right? Because that’s when Bad comes about. I think for that, certainly the devil is in the details.

Where did you visit to see his clothing?

We went to the Grammy Museum [in Los Angeles] and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland.

So there are a lot of ways to look for research on Michael, but how did you tap into the people around him?

Up until a certain age, whenever you saw Michael, you saw somebody with him, right? So when he was a child, you always saw him with his brothers and his family. When he became older, you saw him with who actually played a very prominent role in his life, Bill Bray, who was his security guard. So you always—for the most part, those integral characters which we see in the film, there’s photographic documentation of that.

Colman Domingo playing the controversial Joe Jackson, father to the Jackson family.

Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

Were you able to work with the family at all in this whole process? Were any of the brothers a point of reference?

I think the great reference that we had was Jaafar. He was a great vessel to the process.

Not only did Jaafar Jackson embody the essence of his uncle, but he was a great vessel in the process of making the movie.

Glen Wilson/Lionsgate

Does it feel at all intimidating to get things right or make it feel as real as possible when you’re working with real characters versus any of your previous projects where the characters were fictional?

If you look into my filmography, I’ve done more than one biopic. This one just so happens to be about the King of Pop. To have to replicate something of a person who’s been alive, I signed up to make sure that the integrity of the person’s wardrobe is intact. That goes for anybody. Obviously, you have people who are alive or once alive and we’re telling their stories, and then you also have fictional characters, but to me, my process is about the integrity of design.

That makes sense. Who did you start with first when you were building this particular wardrobe?

I don’t think you can start with anyone first. It’s going to sound robotic, but you have to study, and I took the approach of really, truly sitting with my research and zooming in and out. Because we span over several eras and different moments.

For those of us who really don’t know, how do you begin building the wardrobe? Do you first go over the script with the director?

The first thing I dive into is reading the script, and then I actually find music that speaks to me, or speaks to me intuitively or innately through the character.

What spoke to you from Michael’s music? What would be on your playlist?

“Rock With You,” “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” and I think everyone’s favorite is “Thriller.”