It Ends With Us Costume Designer on Blake Livelys Outfits Criticism: Its Great to Be Talked About

Eric Daman, the costume designer for It Ends With Us, confesses that he noticed the online fan discussion about Blake Lively’s appearance in the film, but he was glad that people were discussing his creations. 
 
During the shooting in New Jersey and New York in Spring 2023, some enthusiasts were able to photograph and videograph Lively in the streets in the costume of her character Lily Bloom. The images went viral on social media, and some of the book lovers were not happy with Lively’s choice of clothes, as they did not expect Lily to dress like that while reading Colleen Hoover’s book that inspired the movie. 
 
Daman dismisses the concerns and says and is genuinely happy that “there is just so much focus on the looks themselves. ” 
 
Daman also thinks that once “people actually see the context of the clothing and how it’s actually put together in the scenes, [and] how Blake carries it all as Lily, I think people are gonna be thrilled and very excited. ” 
 
It Ends With Us, a movie by Justin Baldoni, who also portrays Ryle, is a story of Lily who rises from a terrible childhood to start a new life. However, after starting a romantic relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle, she witnesses aspects of him that resemble her parents’ domestic violence. 
 
Further down, Daman, who was also a costume designer for the first Gossip Girl, shares his experience of working with Lively after more than ten years and how he drew on the show’s motifs to design costumes for some of the characters in It Ends With Us, including Lively and Jenny Slater (Allysa). 
 
How did the discussions start when it came to the costumes and the overall appearance of the movie? 
 
Blake was already attached, and Blake and I have an awesome past as far as being on Gossip Girl together for six years. The first big discussions were about Lily and Lily’s aesthetic and that we really wanted that to be very, very specific and unique and new and sort of off-kilter in a way that was specific to her character. And also, what Blake was going to contribute to the table. She is a fashion diva. It was very exciting to kind of come up with ideas together and to be back together to build this amazing, complex, strong character. 
 
This led me to the idea of bringing in some very special, unique pieces that are from the vintage collection. Blake and I were on the same page with that, focusing on the bin clothing and sort of finding this middle ground between the two. We do not want Lily to look like a shrinking violet. She is a very strong-willed, self-empowered woman and I think it was very important not to go too far into clothing where it felt more delicate. 
 
How much of the design did Hoover and Baldoni have input in and did you discuss the characters with the cast members? 
 
Yeah, definitely! Big conversations. Blake is a great creative mind. Justin had ideas as far as the tone and what we wanted to mimic. And I feel like as far as style goes, he was excited to see what Blake and I would come up with within the confines of the overall look of the film that works in production design and whatnot. Colleen really also allowed us to be ourselves. I had great conversations with Colleen, like when she would visit the wardrobe or come to the shooting location. She was only very positive and encouraging and really wanted Blake and I to bring our sensibility to how we felt Lily could embody clothing. When I was working with Blake on Gossip Girl, we had a very mutual understanding of who Serena was. Blake enjoys dressing up and loves clothing and has a great sense of style and great style sense. I hope so, we do that (Laughs), and getting back together to work together again after it had been over 10 years since I worked with Blake in that capacity, it was like a day had not passed. But we both had grown in such amazing ways. 
 
I was just about to ask you how it is like to work with Lively on Gossip Girl and now. 
 
It was like a very unexpected gift. We worked together for six years on Gossip Girl. I first met Blake when she was 19 and can now get to know her as she is now and she gets to know me as well. We get to have this kind of shared experience. 
 
Hoover has mentioned before that she decided to age up the characters for the movie adaptation. How did that affect your planning for the costumes? 
 
The fact that it has been aged up and Blake and Justin coming in having the ages that they are, especially Lily’s character, I feel like she would have more a sense of herself and a sense of style in a way [compared to] if it was like just after college, [where] there’s still maybe a little bit of experimenting or not as much self-confidence in the way that we chose to dress her. Well, that once more brings us to self-empowerment. I believe that the self-possessiveness that Blake introduced to Lily. 
 
Was it difficult to design the looks for present-day and young Lily, played by Isabela Ferrer, and at the same time attempt to connect them? 
 
It’s an exciting challenge. You want it to feel connected and you wanna kind of blur the lines between the two, which is something I like to do with tone, the color — the very de-saturated palette that young Lily is in. And that would have been the 2010s. There was a revival of a grunge look that was in vogue at the time. Gossip Girl does it a little with Jenny Humphrey, but that is a whole other story. But it felt natural to lean into that de-saturated color world. For young Lily, we played with the idea and kind of set the stage … to kind of find the symbiosis without it being a clone like a mini-me of it was really exciting, a fantastic challenge. 
 
When filming last year, some of the photos and videos that fans took on the streets were on social media, and there was a lot of discussion about Lively’s costumes in particular. How did you feel about that?

It is great that there is just so much focus on the looks themselves, if it is positive, and haters will hate. And social media likes to lend itself to heavy criticism based on absolutely nothing. So my point of view is that when people actually see the context of the clothing and how it’s actually put together in the scenes, how Blake carries it all as Lily, I think people are gonna be thrilled and very excited. And so far the reaction with some of the people that I’ve spoken with that have seen it has been very, very positive and exciting. 
 
When we were working on the new Gossip Girl, it was my first time when the kids would come out of their trailers and their costumes were being detailed from head to toe, like designer callouts, pros and cons, just the whole thing within minutes of them stepping out of the trailer on the sidewalk, way before things were airing. So I have a different understanding of how social media, the excitement around the clothing works, which is exciting for me also to see that people are that interested in my work being positive. Well, I am a pop culture consumer and to be able to be a producer of it is a wonderful thing that, one way or the other, it is good to be a topic of discussion. … It is possible to satisfy many people most of the time, but it is impossible to satisfy all people at all times. You just have to ignore it and just accept the fact that there will always be people who are happy about certain things and there will always be people who are not. 
 
Was there a particular costume in the movie that fans should look out for? 
 
One of my favorite looks is the first time we see Alyssa, Jenny Slate’s character, kind of arriving in that dust bowl when Lily’s first cleaning out her floral store, her boutique, and Jenny Slate arrives in this amazing, kind of off the runway Oscar de la Renta floor-length coat and an orange Birkin bag. This flawless specimen of wealth and style and enters this dust bowl. It is a lovely area, but it is far from the image of this woman. And there’s something about that look and the way we first meet Jenny’s character Alyssa that to me it feels very, very special and that she is so genuine and kind and has empathy and humor that balances that look out because if she was cold and austere, it would be a very different person wearing that outfit. 
 
And to be self-referential, there’s definitely a nod to Blair Waldorf in there, because in creating Alyssa, she would have grown up with the Gossip Girl. She definitely would have been a Blair. So I think having a couple of headband moments and just throw that up to the fans as sort of an Easter egg. 
 
When fans view the costumes in the context of the film, what do you want the audience to remember and do you want the fans to change their mind? 
 
That all these are very strong characters. I believe it is very significant and to realize that Lily is confident, imaginative, and powerful. She has a very strong personality and knows who she is. And I think to be able to help create that through clothing, that’s what I love doing as a costume designer. I am actually there to provide the actors and directors with tools to help them come alive and be their characters.