One Piece is one of the most popular anime and manga franchises ever and despite live-action adaptations having a poor record, Netflix took a risk. The result of the risk was a series that has received positive reviews in general, from both fans and critics for its fun, adventurous tone, characters, and relative accuracy to the source material. It has even been renewed for a second season by Netflix.
The costumes were a big part of bringing the anime and manga to life, especially since a lot of One Piece characters wear costumes and colors that are now iconic and almost synonymous with them. In an interview with Filmfare, costume designer Diana Cilliers spoke about the process of designing costumes for the Netflix series.
Which character was the toughest to dress in Netflix’s One Piece?
During the interview with Filmfare, Diana Cilliers spoke about which character of One Piece was the most difficult to dress, and it was the overarching villain of the first season, Arlong. Cilliers said:
“I think Arlong was quite difficult. We covered him a little bit more than he would have been covered normally in the manga. We chose the colors because we wanted a darkness about him as well. We put some laser-cut leather into his costume. But it couldn’t be too dark because we put in the pure essence of the manga character. The same goes for Mihawk as well. His hat was very important. It had very specific colors and textures.”
Cilliers also spoke about how it was an absolute joy to dress and design for the characters of the series since they weren’t stuck to one particular historical time period. Everyone wore something different and that is something which only added to the journey.
How did the costume team adapt costumes from the One Piece manga?
Speaking on the process of adapting the characters’ costumes from the One Piece manga, Diana Cilliers said to Filmfare:
“The most important thing was that we really wanted to honor Oda sensei’s manga. We didn’t want to detract from that in any way at all. And I guess from a costume point of view, I had to look at the drawings and then turn it into something that was three-dimensional with fabrics and textures and so on. That was a great challenge, and we wanted to stick to the colors, the designs, and everything else exactly the same. It was difficult to turn it into something that moves.”
Cilliers also spoke about running many tests on the costumes since they wanted to remain faithful to the manga, along with balancing that with safety concerns since many scenes were aboard a ship on the water.
Source: Filmfare
