Procuring 200 to 300 leather jackets for Apple TV+’s limited series “ Masters of the Air ” was a global undertaking for costume designer Colleen Atwood . Atwood, who has worked on “Chicago,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and the upcoming “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” might have over 80 credits to her name and four Academy Awards under her belt, but World War II had somehow eluded her until now. Sitting down with Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay, Atwood explains how she had to get era-specific zippers from Japan and sheepskin from Scotland and England to create the costumes for the 1940s-set series.
Through research and archive photography, Atwood studied in detail what these pilots looked like and assessed their style. The process of manufacturing the 200 to 300 jackets used in the show took about nine months. Leather specialist Gary Eastman provided Atwood with the material, but she also needed the leather to look worn and weathered.
To achieve that, Atwood says, “We put them in a vat of rocks and a cement mixer, literally, to beat up the leather, to get it to look like somebody had been wearing it for a few months, and as the journey went on they were aged more in that way.” Atwood adds, “We had to sheer the insides so they weren’t as thick as they were otherwise we would all look like Michelin guys.” Adapted from Donald L.
Miller’s book of the same name, the miniseries dramatizes the wartime ventures of the 100th.
