Costume designer Laura Renau’s captions defined the swing palette, also used as a reference by the dancers so they could choose their own clothes according to her chromatic proposal.

The guidelines for the dancers are: “All clothes must be in colours ranging from blue, purple, lilac, burgundy to red. These will be mixed with black and white. As long as they comply with the colour scheme, the style is irrelevant and can range from sport and working clothes, to more formal, with stripes, prints or plaid, etc. Please bring many options so styles can be decided on the set.”

Laura Renau and Jonás Trueba thought out the colour palette of the swing as a meeting or blend of the characters’ colours (which can be seen in Colour palette and costumes) In between Olmo’s blue and Manuela’s red hues of indigo and purple, red can also be appreciated.

The movement and the many visual elements turn the dancing clothes into brush strokes and spots of colour. The costumes act as if painters of the film.

References

The dancing in West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961) accompanies both the visual and the chromatic aspects of the sequence. Laura Renau’s pictures were shared with the team during the prep work of the film.