Blake Lively wanted her wardrobe in It Ends with Us to reflect her character's contradictions.
In the new drama, the Gossip Girl actress plays a florist called Lily Bloom who encounters her childhood sweetheart while navigating her abusive marriage to her husband Ryle.
Lively, who also produced the film, was determined to make Lily's wardrobe reflect her character's complexities and help tell the story visually.
"For me, wardrobe is the way that I enter a character... I felt like Lily's wardrobe was really, really important to me that it was both utility and then fabulous-glam, it was masculine and feminine, it was old and new, and it was all the things that she is," she explained to Extra. "She (has) contradictions, but also you see how they make sense together and she's trying to reconcile her past while, you know, making way for her future. I think you see all of that storytelling in her wardrobe."
In It Ends With Us, Lily wears an eclectic array of clothes, from practical shirts and jeans to high-fashion looks with heels and fishnet tights.
Lively admitted you have to have "a strong sense of self" to pull off Lily's bold outfits.
"You've gotta really be in your skin to dress like that. You've gotta know who you are and have a strong sense of self," the star continued. "So, I think that's probably the most critical thing, is to see somebody who's not flailing or trying to figure out who they are or grasping, someone who really has both feet on the ground and has a strong sense of self also lose themselves and not realise that they're losing themselves, I think is really powerful. I think we conveyed that. Wardrobe does a lot to convey that."
It Ends with Us is in cinemas now.