Archival Prada Transforms Andra Day into Billy Holiday for Her Golden Globes-Winning Role

Last year was dubbed the year of protest music, but nearly a century ago, Billie Holiday pioneered the genre in popular culture with her 1939 recording of “Strange Fruit,” a tragically poetic song that brings awareness to the lynching of Black people in the American South. Before the 20th century, protest music was passed down within communities as part of oral history. As technology brought record players and radios into households, it had a new platform from which it could be broadcast. Lady Day became the first to transform protest music from sing-songy chants into art that provokes and inspires. People sought to hear her sing the haunting lyrics of “Strange Fruit” just as much as the U.S. government wanted to silence her. Using Holiday’s struggle with alcoholism and heroin addiction as a reason to target her, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics arrested and convicted the singer for narcotics possession in 1947. She subsequently lost her cabaret card, a required permit for all nightclub performers in New York City, which barred Holiday from the stages where she felt most at home. Holiday continued to perform, selling out Carnegie Hall and daring to sing “Strange Fruit.” However, her addiction and depression deteriorated her health and she passed away in 1959 at the age of 44.

Singer and actress Andra Day embodies Holiday and her struggles in Lee Daniels’ just released The United States vs. Billie Holiday, out now on Hulu. The newly minted Golden Globes-winning performance by Day marks the first time a Black star has won for Best Actress in 35 years, and only the second time in history that a Black actress has won the category (the first was Whoopi Goldberg in 1986 for The Color Purple).

To transform Andra Day into Lady Day, Daniels enlisted his costuming collaborator Paolo Nieddu to outfit the actress in stunning stage ensembles evocative of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. Nieddu had some help from Prada, as designer Miuccia Prada and Daniels are friendly, and the director recently took part in a post-show discussion following Prada's Fall/Winter 2021 digital runway. For the film, the Italian fashion house lended its resources to the costume designer, including its archives, seamstresses, and textiles. These standout ensembles merged inspiration from Holiday’s real-life clothes with Prada’s vintage-inspired flair and undeniable luxury. Nieddu, who’s worked on fashion-conscious projects like Sex and the City, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Ugly Betty, and Daniels’ Empire, also had the opportunity to design some original looks, entirely of his own creation.

Here, Nieddu speaks with L’OFFICIEL about working with Day, recreating Holiday’s signature accessories, and using fashion to underscore the artist’s experience.

L’OFFICIEL: You’ve worked on shows including Sex and the City and Ugly Betty—are you particularly drawn to stories with a strong fashion component?

Paolo Nieddu:  And Cookie, [from Empire]. Before I got into production, I was working in fashion, assisting the fashion editor of Interview Magazine at the time, and I was working at [costume designer Patricia] Fields’ store. I was around these projects that definitely were fashion-focused, and I'd been lucky to end up in that lane with the work. It's not a requirement, I've just been lucky to have the beautifully dressed characters come my way.
 

L’O: Speaking of beautifully dressed characters, you collaborated with Prada for Billie’s costumes. What was that process like?

PN: I had nine pictures of Billie, and I started going through [the Prada runway photos] look-number by look-number, to be like "Ok does any part of this outfit, or this design, evoke this dress in any way?" Then I started putting them together with a flat sketch of the goal I wanted to achieve in terms of the period, the actual reference photo of Billie that I was using, the runway pictures that I felt captured that mood, and with notes like "Can this be a long sleeve?" and "Could you do this in yellow?" There would be elements of a [Cruise] 2019 bodice done as a ballgown, in a brocade in reference to Billie, and the brocade would be from a different collection. So Prada worked on those pieces, and then the others were solely designed by myself, with a combination of vintage.

L’O: Billie also has some standout accessories—did you recreate any from real life?

PN: In looking at so many reference photos of her, it was insane how many looks she had in such a short life. So many looks! Sometimes you're looking at a photo and you couldn't believe it was the same person. It was so chameleon, and so cool, so avant-garde and revolutionary at the time. She definitely loved her accessories. Like the gardenia, we all know is her signature, and she wore different versions. We used orchids in the film because there are pictures of her wearing orchids in her hair. And her face earrings, they're like an African mask. They're gold brass, and she wears them towards the end of the film. They're seen on her in several pictures of her from the late '50s and she wears them with a lot of different outfits so I thought, she must've loved these earrings, because she wore them all the time.

Those are signatures, and of course her gloves, which are born out of tragedy. They become a style signature to Billie, but in fact they were there to hide her drug use when she was performing. I also used a charm bracelet on her a lot. It's something that I gravitated towards in accessorizing her for an everyday piece of jewelry. She didn't need to wear rhinestones and sparkles with every look.

L’O: How did you want the costumes to reflect the characters’ development throughout the film?

PN: A lot of that came from the mood that Lee would want to create in a scene, and working with the production designer, Daniel Dorrance, and our cinematographer, Andrew Dunn. We were all working together on this palette and on this tone. Sometimes it would come together through the room that Dan was doing, or for example, the yellow gown that Billie i's in when she comes across the family grieving their lynched mother. She doesn't know what lies ahead of her and yet she's in this happy sort of dress, and then she stumbles upon tragedy.