Serbian costume designer Bojana Nikitović doesn’t know who referred her to work on “Dune: Prophecy.” “I don’t know who suggested my name, and I never found out, but I’m really grateful for whoever that was,” she says. Vague origins aside, the decision proved fruitful, as Nikitović’s work brought the Frank Herbert-inspired characters to life with distinction, earning the show an Emmy nomination in outstanding fantasy/sci-fi costumes for its debut episode, “The Hidden Hand.”
Streaming on HBO Max, “Dune: Prophecy” takes place 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and the events of the Denis Villeneuve films. It follows two Harkonnen sisters as they build their Sisterhood school into the powerful sect of Truthsayers known as the Bene Gesserit. In true “Dune” fashion, the series hops around between several planets, introducing characters from different Houses and cultures for an immersive universe. In the first episode, the story visits the Sisterhood school on Wallach IX, an Imperial wedding on Salusa Secundus and other diverse locations. Nikitović’s job was to dress the people populating these planets in ways that felt reflective of their settings and true to the “Dune” canon.
The Sisterhood school is pivotal to the series, and in the first ten minutes of “The Hidden Hand,” the episode jumps thirty years forward in time— from when Valya Harkonnen (Jessica Barden) was a student at the school to when she is the order’s matriarch (Emily Watson). The later timeline immediately showcases a greater variety of clothing among the Sisterhood. “We wanted to show that the whole Sisterhood kind of bloomed,” Nikitović explains, “We changed the type of embossing from 30 years before. We put different tones of grays in for novices, acolytes and Reverend mothers.”
The episode then travels to Salusa Secundus, introducing the Corrino and Richese houses on the eve of a political wedding. While both houses are wealthy, Nikitović calls their statuses “old money” versus “new money.” Respectively, the traditionally wealthy Corrino are donned in dark, conservative attire, while the Richese are more flamboyant, dressed in flowing robes of light blush colors, aiming to flaunt their newer riches.
The character who undergoes the most costume changes on Salusa Secundus is Princess Ynez Corrino (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), the daughter of the Emperor (Mark Strong) and bride in the aforementioned wedding. The first episode shows Ynez dressed for combat training, a night out and, most memorably, her wedding. “It’s so important not only to make them look good and right for the scene, but also to make them feel good in a costume that they were wearing,” Nikitović reflects. The training attire was thus made of a more elastic silk, which allowed Boussnina and her co-stars to move athletically while still appearing authentic to the universe.
Ynez’s wedding dress is the most distinctive costume of the episode. Showcasing an elegance rarely associated with “Dune,” the dress is a brilliant bright red. Canonically, it is the dress that Ynez’s mother (Jodhi May) wore when she married the Emperor— a marriage that was just as politically orchestrated as the one Ynez embarks on with the Richese heir. The costume thus becomes a family heirloom, one steeped in grace and cunningness.
Nikitović sought to create something “elegant and powerful” with Ynez’s dress. Wanting to use the shade of red that would best capture and reflect light, Nikitović and her team ended up creating a specialty fabric, which they laser cut and glued on top of the basic silk to adhere to the actor’s figure while making the colors pop. The character of the dress was not limited to its stunning color, though. Despite its elegance, the dress’ netted lace around Ynez’s shoulders, the veil and the accompanying golden veil emulate cages. Nikitović explains that the dress had to appear like “something that she’s confined in. It was important to show that she’s forced to go into this engagement.”
Finally, the episode also introduces one of “Dune Prophecy’s” most fickle characters: Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel). A soldier who returns to Salusa Secundus just hours before the wedding, he wears a long coat over a tan militaristic garb, one that complements Fimmel’s dirty-blonde beard while also alluding to the sandy warscape he just escaped from on Arrakis. Nikitović took inspiration from old Westerns to dress Hart, wanting to introduce him like a mysterious, cloaked cowboy emerging from the desert. Nobody else in the episode dresses like Hart; his costume clearly establishes his singularity, which reveals its full colors later in the series.
