COSTUME

Ever since seeing Bane's Coat in The Dark Knight Rises I've been trawling E-Bay for a sheepskin coat. So I loved reading costume designer Lindy Hemmings description of how it came to be...

“Because of my research for this character; he is a man who has travelled the world as a kind of mercenary. I was looking at two main areas, firstly his military surplus scavenging, which has gone into making up his entire wardrobe and breathing equipment; I fell in love with a very old, matted Swedish army sheepskin arctic wear coat with huge collar and lead weights as buttons, a great characterful garment. Secondly his idealistic, romantic, revolutionary aspirations, which was how Chris Nolan had explained an aspect of him; this lead me to think about the French Revolutionary style / military greatcoat look with ample collars. We also has a feeling that this garment could be a ‘sign/signal’ of the change for the mania in his behaviour of and his worsening destructive megalomania as he enters the football field. Obviously this combination of ideas in a garment did not exist so I decided to set about designing it and having it made in L.A. It was a very difficult project, and there were the issues of multiples, the non- matching aspects of sheepskins, and, for poor Tom Hardy as Bane, an extra hot, heavy horror, as he was already facing torture by face and mouth with the covering mask.”