Long-time Eggers collaborator, Linda Muir, was the primary costume designer for Nosferatu, known for her period-perfect textile sourcing and one-of-a-kind vintage pieces. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing high-society Friedrich, remarked that she “is the perfect person for Robert because she, too, has that extreme eye for detail”. They worked closely with German and Romanian historians to nail down this particularly incipient fashion era. The evolutionary phase between amorous regency dresses and opulent Victorian gowns, the fictional town of Burg, Germany in 1838 was a sea of high waistlines, low necklines, and fanning bonnets.
The character with the most striking outfits was decidedly Skarsgård’s Count Orlok. In his opening scenes he shrinks back into his oversized furs, hiding his shrivelled form behind the luxury of Transylvanian nobility. Often seen in lace shirts, a sweeping sheepskin mente (cape), and kalpak (fur cap), he channels a brutish, carnal vampiric energy that we’ve seen little of on the big screen.
The Eastern European attire keeps Orlok decidedly othered when he arrives in Germany.
Nothing like sleek-robed Dracula of modern vampy heartthrobs, his dress is focused on periodic accuracy. The Eastern European attire keeps him decidedly othered when he arrives in Germany. His furred capes relics of lost empires, he is an ancient occult force invading a modern, industrialised space. Muir and Eggers have made sure he embodies both a hated, unfairly wealthy upper class, and the rising fears of foreigners, disease and globalism from the 1920s (when the original Nosferatu was released).
Both Depp and Skarsgård also play into the idea of the vampire as the shadow-self. Much of the discourse online understood Orlok as the embodiment of moral guilt, depression, and repressed sexuality. The immense furs drowning his dying body and melting him into the castle’s shadows definitely feed into this interpretation, turning him into more of a nightmarish, larger-than-life curse than a real creature.
Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen Hutter also donned some immaculately detailed outfits, slowly transitioning from bright colours, into grayscale, down to black as she mentally declines. Her character arc is perfectly summarised by her tortured question: “Does evil come from within us, or from beyond?”. In my opinion, the movie answers the question quite resolutely in terms of Ellen’s character - from beyond. German society demonises her desires, her seizures, and her power. She is a stand-in for so many women of the period, who were persecuted for being complex and disobedient. Friedrich becomes convinced that she and her erotic nightmares are a curse upon his family, with only the eccentric Von Franz seeing her for the powerful spiritual conduit she truly is. Not at all evil or debased, but “a priestess of another time”.
Ellen’s final, most memorable scene depicts her in her wedding dress.
When interacting with Orlok and his curse, Ellen is often wandering in her white, flowing chemise. Hair down and arms spread wide, she is a picture of vulnerability and purity as she selflessly begs him to hear her cry. Being so frequently caught in her sheer underclothes highlights the sexuality of Ellen’s character, but also frames it as something gentle and graceful using the soft silhouette. This romantic portrayal of her desire is something the men of the film misunderstand, their restrictive control embodied by the tight corset she rips off in her possession scene. This suffocating hand of misogyny (as seen strangling Ellen in the opening scene) is the true evil pervading society. Nosferatu is only an after-effect, an embodiment of guilt invited there by their oppressive values.
Whilst she has many other iconic outfits, Ellen’s final, most memorable scene depicts her in her wedding dress, laid dying under Nosferatu’s shrivelled body. Their final pose is Egger’s reimagination of the ‘death and the maiden’ motif, giving Ellen a feminist power in her death. She is depicted as a willing wife to evil, rising to be his equal in partnership. She takes Nosferatu as a lover to save Thomas and the city, the wedding gown proving her agency as a heroine, and her acceptance of her own shadow-self.
Other honourable fashion mentions in the film go out to Thomas’ travelling wardrobe across Romania, the cultural detail paid to the dress of the villagers and ATJ’s perfectly coifed hair. Muir and Eggers truly outdid themselves stylistically in this film, and there is absolutely no way I could cover every fashionable choice they made in one article. I can only hope that this inspires you to go and watch Nosferatu if you haven’t already!
Although maybe don’t take fashion inspiration from Ellen Hutter, unless your looking to attract 6’4 moustached noblemen with a taste for real estate and plasma.