In ‘One Battle After Another,’ Colleen Atwood Perfects the Art of Subtle Costuming

Colleen Atwood’s career as an Oscar-winning costume designer has spanned from Jazz Age Chicago to a fantastical world down the rabbit hole. But with Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, One Battle After Another, Atwood stayed firmly planted in reality, fashioning revolutionaries, white supremacists, high schoolers, migrants, skaters, weed-growing nuns, and a freedom-fighting Sensei. “It’s one of the movies I’m most proud of,” she says.

Atwood, who says she knows Anderson from “around town,” connected with the director thanks to a serendipitous lunchtime run-in. “I walked out, and he was there with his family. He said hi and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m just hanging right now.’ And he goes, ‘You want to do my next project?’” Indeed, she did.