‘Matrix’ magic maker

Designing a coat to make Keanu Reeves look good wasn’t much of a challenge for Kym Barrett. The real challenge for the “Matrix” costumer was coming up with a design that looked good while he battled dozens of self-replicating agents, walked across a ceiling and flew through the sky -- and did it without revealing the cables, wires, harnesses and other technical wizardry required to do so.

“Everyone thinks visual effects can rub out anything, but they can’t,” Barrett said during an interview at Universal Studios’ Edith Head building, where racks of clothes were shuttling in and out of the elevator. “They can’t scrub out something that’s poking out, so I make sure it does that job.”

Doing that job required 40 different versions of the same coat -- a “walking and talking” version that looked good up close, a “burly brawl” version that worked when fighting and others that worked in the rain and wind. Many of Reeves’ coats were made from different fabrics. The trick was making all of them look exactly the same on film.

Ditto for the cat suit worn by Carrie-Anne Moss. That one came in 15 different versions, some made from PVC, others patent leather.

“When poor Carrie-Anne is wearing a harness and a fiberglass plate and we’re wrapping her up in PVC, it’s quite hard to convince her that she’s going to look beautiful ... which of course she does.

“The design has to work first,” added Barrett, 37. “Then you make it look good.”

If the art of the “Matrix” films is illusion, then Barrett is certainly a master. She not only works but thrives within technological constraints, conveying mood through fabric. When Barrett signed on with directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, they gave her a simple directive: “We want it to be dark, we want it to be high contrast, we want Trinity to be like an oil slick.”

Barrett’s designs had an impact on more than just the movie. “In the same way the moves and special effects of ‘The Matrix’ are now iconic, I think the costumes have turned to that as well,” said Ricky Dick, founder of the New York/New Jersey chapter of the International Costumers’ Guild. “There’ve been leather trench coats for decades, but bringing the ‘30s or ‘40s trench-coat look into the future has created a new and unique look all its own.”

If a person’s looks were indicative of design sensibility, then Barrett might seem better suited to lighter fare. Petite and blond with blazing blue eyes, the native Australian has a genteel, small-town manner that contrasts with the films’ moody, brooding nature.

Barrett grew up on Christmas Island in Brisbane. Living in such a remote locale, her family didn’t have a television. The only movies she saw were at an outdoor movie theater, and it only screened Hong Kong action flicks and westerns. It is those seemingly disparate sensibilities that she’s brought to all the “Matrix” films, the most recent of which -- “The Matrix Reloaded” -- opens today. For the pair of ghosts that make their debut in “Reloaded,” for example, Barrett conceived them to look like “a cross between a Southern evangelist and Jon Bon Jovi,” in suits and dreadlocks.

Barrett got her start in theater at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney and worked in theater for about eight years before crossing over to film. It was in Sydney that she designed an outdoor stage production of Henry V, a production that was seen by director Baz Luhrmann, who asked her to make the leap to film with his modern interpretation of “Romeo & Juliet.” She went on to design air-conditioned spacesuits for the movie “Red Planet” and Victorian garb for the Jack the Ripper drama, “From Hell.” Currently, she’s consulting on the remake of “Superman.”

“A lot of people would get fixated on what to do with the red underpants. My theory is first of all find your actor and then you work out what looks good,” she said, referring to the upcoming remake, which does not yet have a director or lead actor.

“Everyone knows who Superman is, and if they see the movie they’ll be dying for him to get his clothes off and go pick up a train or whatever,” she added. “My job is to enhance that anticipation.”

And she learns how to create that anticipation through research, which, for Barrett, is the primary allure of costuming. “Every job has these whole other worlds that you get to learn about,” she said.

For “Red Planet” that meant talking to engineers at NASA. For “Romeo & Juliet,” it meant finding people to hand-paint Hawaiian shirts and silversmith custom guns. In the future, Barrett said, she’d like to design armor and showgirl costumes.

“Each job I get I think, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ And then you investigate further and it all just ends up working out,” she said. “That’s what I love about it. It’s a revealing of a mystery, and at the same time you’re telling a story. Hopefully you’re telling a story no one’s told before in the same way.”

Susan Carpenter can be contacted at [email protected].