How the Fashion in Anora Portrays a Cinderella Story Gone Wrong
Warning: spoilers for Anora ahead.
Sean Baker’s latest film, Anora, begins like a modern-day fairytale. The protagonist, Anora, who goes by Ani (Mikey Madison), is a streetwise dancer working at a strip club in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn when she falls headfirst into a relationship with one of her high-rolling clients—the goofy but entitled Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the 21-year-old son of Russian oligarchs. Though at 23, Ani is lightyears ahead of the juvenile Ivan, together the two collapse into a spell of puppy love, naively rushing into marriage during an impromptu trip to Las Vegas.
But unfortunately for Ani, what starts as a cinéma vérité-style Cinderella story soon veers toward a chilling narrative more like Bluebeard. After sweeping Ani off her Pleasers heels and offering a taste of the American dream, Ivan must contend with his powerful parents, still in Russia and seething over their son bringing a sex worker into the family fold. When Ivan is confronted by his godfather, along with a couple of his goons who have been tasked with physically dragging the couple to the courthouse to annul the marriage, he flees the scene, leaving Ani to embark on a madcap caper in search of her runaway Prince Charming. By the end, abandoned and exhausted, Ani realizes she’s the only one who can save herself.
Set over the course of a little more than a week, Anora finds its characters making just a few—if any—outfit changes. Each sartorial choice then holds great weight for the story, with Ani and Ivan’s pieces in particular adding extra layers of depth to their characters, whether dressed in vintage Balenciaga or local brands with indie street cred. The film’s costume designer, Jocelyn Pierce, who mostly recently worked on Hit Man and the 2023 indie The Sweet East, said Baker’s vision for the film was “ultra-cinematic”—a vibe she tried to match with her early moodboards.
“My search history gets crazy when I'm on a film,” she tells W. “I went down so many different rabbit holes. I was looking at a lot of Russian influencers.”
Ultimately, the main references came from magazines—“It was all really high fashion editorials to start,” she notes. “Then, we fully immersed ourselves in Brighton Beach and took these glossy magazine images and started to ground them in reality.” Here’s how she and her team of just two assistants did it.
Dressing the Dancers
As he often does, Baker added several first-time actors to Anora’s cast. In this case, real-life exotic dancers served as the ensemble for several scenes at the strip club. In addition to guiding Madison’s interpretation of Ani and acting in the film, the dancers also informed Pierce’s costume choices.
“It's incredibly important to me to do justice to the characters, especially when dealing with subjects like Ani, who is a sex worker. It was important to talk to actual dancers and hear their stories, and go to the clubs and see what they really wear,” Pierce says. “For the most part, when it came to the dancers, we chose from their own things.”
Anora cast several real-life dancers, many of whom wore their own clothes for their scenes.
The Film Treatment
Anora was also shot on actual film, which meant the clothes and colors really had to pop. “It wasn't the first time I've worked on something that's shown on film, but it's a different animal,” Pierce says. “We were filming a lot at night, so texture, shine, and all of that stuff becomes very important. The way that film catches light is a little bit different.”
Scenes like Ani meeting Ivan’s friends at his New Year’s Eve party had to be carefully lit—and dressed—since they were shot on real film.
The Madison Method
To get into character, Mikey Madison spent time with the dancers at Headquarters Kony in Midtown Manhattan, which also served as the set. She pulled from her own closet for key scenes—like a lap dance she performs early on for Ivan, wearing a plaid school-girl skirt and black lace-up platform boots. “It was really fascinating to witness how methodical she was,” Pierce says. “She dove so deep into research and into character that it was super collaborative. I couldn't even tell you how many fittings we did. It was beautifully fluid, an ongoing conversation.”
Like the dancers, Madison wore her own pieces for certain scenes.
As for the sparkly pink and purple tinsel streaks in her otherwise long, dark brown hair? That was the brainchild of hair department head Justine Sierakowski. “That was her stroke of absolute genius,” Pierce says.
A Color Story Within a Story
Pierce used red and blue as colorful touchpoints against the film’s stark urban landscape. In particular, Ani’s red scarf plays a pivotal role—first being used to gag Ani, then comforting her in the frigid night air, before ultimately setting her free when she defiantly throws it back to its original owner, Ivan’s mother.
“The scarf had to be red,” Pierce says. “That was in the script. There are many interpretations that could be found. Obviously, there’s a Russian correlation. But also, red evokes so many different emotions. There's so much black and neutral and metallic, by virtue of it being New York City in the wintertime. I noticed later that we popped blue and red, and I started to see this theme of the American dream coming out in a visual way.”
The moment Ani sees Ivan clearly for the first time, in her plum fur coat and red scarf.
In her first house call to Ivan’s massive home, Ani shows up in an icy blue Hervé Léger bandage dress. “That dress slays me,” Pierce adds. “It's electric in that scene. It just pops off with how cold the mansion and New York are, and those red sheets in the house.”
“I noticed later that we popped blue and red, and I started to see this theme of the American dream coming out in a visual way.”
The dress was pulled from the personal closet of Pierce’s assistant, Murray Rosenfeld. “It's so nice to have people around you that you really trust,” she says. “Everybody's got these little genius moments that come out.”
Something Blue
When Ani and Ivan rush to the 24-hour chapel in Las Vegas, they’ve only got what they brought for the weekend to wear.
“At first, we had Mark in a red Roma Uvarov suit, which is this amazing Russian designer that I had not known before meeting Mark,” Pierce says. “And we had Ani in the white lace two-piece that she wears somewhere else in Vegas.” But the looks felt too intentional.
Ani and Ivan, getting married in cutoffs and basketball shorts.
Ivan ended up in a custom blazer on loan from New York City tailor Justin Bontha. “We just thought, what if we paired that with basketball shorts? It's so representative of who Ivan is. He's so wealthy. He could have a one-of-one piece, but he's a kid, and he's here to have a good time.”
Ivan and Ani on their impromptu trip to Las Vegas.
Ani wears a creamy-white bustier and a pair of jean shorts. “I love how the bustier is almost the same color as her skin,” Pierce says. “It's such a powerful look, but there's also something really open and vulnerable about it, because it almost looks like it's a part of her body. It's such an innocent moment.”
Telegraphing Vulnerability
When Ivan’s parents find out about the marriage and send their henchmen to have it annulled, she’s wearing just a t-shirt and boyshorts as she physically tries to fight them off.
“Sean felt like she needed to be in a vulnerable state of undress. We needed that tension of, ‘Oh my god, what is she going to do?’” Pierce says of the scene. “She's not fully dressed, and there's nowhere to go. It heightens the stakes. A woman in her underwear in that kind of situation is terrifying.”
Pierce adds that like the men in the film, Madison did her own stunts. “Filming that fight scene was tough to be around. It still gives me chills. Which is why I love when she does get the chance to put clothes on, the pieces she chooses—leather pants, heels, and the fur coat—get her power back.”
First, Igor (Yura Borisov) uses the red scarf to gag Ani, before offering it later as comfort.
The Statement Coat
Like the red scarf, the long fur coat Ivan gifts Ani—made of Russian sable, not mink, as she corrects someone in the film—plays its own role. The coat’s silhouette was inspired by a similar look in the 1972 Japanese thriller/exploitation film Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. “That reference became the inspiration for the shape, and then we built it. It’s meant to have that classic Russian vibe.”
The cast and crew of Anora lived in Brighton Beach during filming.
A New York Moment
Pierce stresses that among the major, mainstream brands featured—like Balenciaga, Supreme, and Gucci—she made a point of working with independent designers and archives. For instance, while Ani dons her fur coat for the entirety of the film’s second half, an incoherent, inebriated Ivan sticks to a graphic hoodie, which was custom spray-painted by Brooklyn artist Atticus Torre.
Madison (in Hervé Léger) and Eydelshteyn (in his Atticus Torre hoodie), on set with Baker.
Pierce and her team also pulled from local places like Gabriel Held Vintage, Haunted Starbucks and worked with local designers like Gypsy Sport, Khaite and Priscavera.
“We wanted to keep it out of the fast fashion realm and on more home team collaborations,” Pierce says. “We really felt like it was a New York movie that we were making.”
