Beyoncé
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After dressing Beyoncé for events that ranged from the Mrs. Carter Show Tour to the 2014 Grammy’s, Michael Costello’s design talents were called in once again to complete wardrobe looks for the On The Run Tour.

During the show, Beyoncé performs in two looks from Costello, one of which is a dramatic black Victorian lace bodysuit. According to Costello, the inspiration was” a very cathedral, romantic, Victorian feel” coupled with his personal music taste.

“My inspiration comes from Beyoncé because I’m a true, die-hard Beyoncé fan, but I think it’s her hair and the way that she moves—I try to use that and mimic that into the clothing. Whether it’s a sequin, a button, or a dramatic sleeve. If you see the dramatic sleeves I did for the Beyoncé lace Victorian bodysuit—the black one—I wanted something she could move in and look stunning in when she’s onstage,” Costello said.

According to the Project Runway alum, the Victorian bodysuit Beyoncé wears for the tour is a product of 72 hours of construction, followed by another 48 hours just to put the entire piece together. “I can make them in an hour or two —especially a performance piece—but that one was a little more intricate with a lot of detail, and we had to go by some really precise measurements. I just wanted to make that one extra special. So, I’d say about five days total for that one piece,” Costello says of the outfit. Of the final look, Costello said, “I had to try to think danceable. Ty was telling me, ‘be fabulous. Be who you are. Do exactly what you do—we love what you do. But, make it danceable.’ So, I think that’s the approach that I wanted to try and take for everything for her, to find a way to make it Michael Costello, for Beyoncé, for On the Run Tour, but danceable.”

In addition to the Victorian lace body suit, another one of Beyoncé’s wardrobe looks from the On The Run Tour was the brain work of Michael Costello. The heavily sequined top paired with printed briefs, mixed patterns while remaining within a dedicated color palette. The inspiration for this look came from Ty Hunter, but finding the perfect fabric to execute it was a hunt in itself.

“Ty had this image of a model on the runway in these really beautiful sequined embroidered shorts with this heavy-stitched embroidered top and said, ‘I love this.’ So I searched everywhere I could to try to find a floral print with stretch that I could use to create the bottom and I couldn’t find anything,” Michael Costello explained. “And I finally found something—I found this black fabric and it only had these blue-colored roses on it. So, we brought this beautiful gold-embroidered lace and just spray-painted it with a metallic shimmer, and we cut those pieces out and applied them over the fabric to mimic the look of the inspiration from the model.”

The rest of the look came together by chance. “One day, I was just walking and I found this gorgeous sequin fabric and I was like, ‘oh, we have to put these two together. This is so different; It’s so hot. I don’t know if they’re going to like it or not.’

But the final pieces that came together after three days committed to a fabric search and nine hours of non-stop solo work by Costello.