She was born in a family of artists where they worked on their own aesthetics for development to the point where playtime became a form of initiation for Mayes. “We would play, but I would make sure everyone had the right costumes, or the right prop. This is like the embryo of my initiation.”
But like many beginning artists in the industry, it took her a bit of time before getting the opportunity to design costumes for big titles like WandaVision, Jojo Rabbit, and Thor: Love and Thunder.
“Some would say, ‘You are good as your last project or your last movie’ and that really [stuck] with me [to keep me on my toes].” Mayes continues to say, “This is a [form of] media that allows me to time travel, which is something I have an incredible fascination for.”
Mayes admits she finds herself lucky for landing her dream job in the industry. “I don’t know if I would have done any other jobs. This is extremely lucky, that I am able to do what I want and people like my work.”
She expresses her interest more by talking about how costumes can basically take you anywhere. “You can go to any time period of a country, or interstellar, or otherworldly—it varies so much.” However, in spite of this desire, she adds that the idea of doing the ‘same thing over and over’ would make her ‘lose steam’ of what she likes to do.
This is why on WandaVision, the costume designer was rather happy because “Every episode was a different fashion period. No offense to other sitcoms or their episodic projects, but for me, it’s important to choose that—to choose the variation of the project, how the project is going to take me. Then you dive in and have the possibility to make that movie your own. It’s fascinating.”
Mayes on Working on ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Project
“There were a few worlds involved and many sections of characters. I was able to design for the Guardians of the Galaxy, which is something I always wanted to do, because I love them.” In fact, she even received praises from a former costume designer of the film for her great work!
“We gave many, many flavors to this storytelling,” she goes on to say, “There were surprises like Thor’s costume underneath; he looked very interesting, I would say, with the sleeveless vest, very 80s. And then we had Natalie Portman [who] was amazing to work with. We had so many, many specialty costumes.”
Mayes talked about how grateful she was to have had design assistants to help her, because in all honesty, considering how big the movie was and its casting and details put in, it would have been too much to handle for one person. Especially since they had to make new-from-scratch designs for Guardians of the Galaxy segment.
Also Read: Black Panther 2 Cast Share Working on Set is Like Being in a ‘Real Life Playground’
