Kiss of the Spider Woman’ Costume Designer Explains How Jennifer Lopez’s Outfit Glows in the Dark

Oscar-nominated 12 times for Best Costume Design, Colleen Atwood won her first of four statuettes for Rob Marshall’s “Chicago,” written by Bill Condon.

Two decades later, Atwood has again collaborated with director Condon on “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a kaleidoscopic fantasia based on the 1993 Broadway musical starring Chita Rivera, which itself was based on a 1976 novel by Manuel Puig and a 1985 Oscar-winning movie.

The film is structured as a conversation between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, as one describes his favorite musical film, seen in fantasy scenes starring Jennifer Lopez.

It’s such a great love letter to 1940s and ’50s MGM musicals,” said Atwood, whose job was designing the outfits for the movie-within-a-movie. Her co-designer, Christine Cantella, worked on the prison wardrobes.

I’d never met Jennifer previous to working on this,” Atwood told TheWrap. “It was phenomenal. Her work ethic and her talent are beyond compare. She really puts in the hours. You don’t become Jennifer Lopez without doing some heavy lifting.”

And though she’s not a household name like her lead actress, Atwood’s work is instantly recognizable all over the world. Her 13-film work with Tim Burton has yielded iconic costumes in “Edward Scissorhands,”

“Sleepy Hollow” and “Alice in Wonderland.” She also won the only Oscar ever awarded to the Harry Potter franchise (for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”).

She even designed the creeptastic brown hockey mask worn by Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs” and just this year entered the zeitgeist again with the plaid bathrobe donned by Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another,” which was haute couture this past Halloween.

“My tribute to JCPenney,” she said. “It cracks me up how many people love that.

Here she takes us through the four most complex and dynamic costumes worn by Lopez in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”