Nope’s Vintage T-shirts Were Telling Us Something

‘Nope’ costume designer Alex Bovaird discusses the inspirations, Easter eggs, and vintage T-shirts that define how the Haywoods, their allies, and their foes dress in Jordan Peele’s third horror film.

Spoilers follow for Jordan Peele’s film Nope.

For most of Jordan Peele’s Nope, Haywood siblings Otis Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) are on the defensive against an alien that has taken up residence in a cloud above their Hollywood Horses ranch. It attacks as it pleases, eats whatever it wants, and drenches their home in blood. So when OJ slips on a borrowed vintage Rage Against the Machine T-shirt, a subtle but effective message is broadcast to the audience members on high enough alert: The Haywoods, along with their tech-savvy ally, Angel (Brandon Perea), are about ready to fight back.

The tee features a quote on the back from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata: “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” “I don’t think you see it,” points out Nope costume designer Alex Bovaird. “I don’t think he turns around.” Bovaird chose the item of clothing for what it could signify to those on the lookout for “hidden Easter eggs,” as she hesitantly calls them. The shirt appropriately appears when the trio is rallying — “when they’re like, ‘Okay, let’s go back in,’ instead of running away. They go right into the fight. OJ and Em are taking on the entity and, subtextually, the powers that be,” Bovaird says.

Bovaird worked closely with Peele on certain script-specific outfit elements but was given free rein to brainstorm unwritten aspects of the characters’ personalities, like what music they would listen to or which beloved cartoon they might rep. In the detail-heavy world of Nope, it is easy to overlook a pop-culture reference amid the chaos of an alien invasion, but each and every costuming decision was made to complement the film’s considerations of celebrity, spectacle, and storytelling. “We were worried about going a little too far, but I don’t think anything is too far for Nope,” Bovaird says.

1. The Band Merch

Photo: Universal Pictures

Nope shows most of the Gordy’s Home attack via young Jupe’s perspective as he hides under a table from the chimpanzee. As he watches Gordy run around the set, Jupe focuses on one of Mary Jo’s blood-splattered shoes, which came off in the mêlée and is somehow standing straight up. Nope returns to the gravity-defying shoe more than once, and Bovaird says that the shoe’s “jean” fabric, as delineated in the script, was a deliberate Peele choice.

“It said in the script ‘jean shoe,’ and one of the first things I asked Jordan was, ‘Do you mean a shoe that goes with jeans? Or do you mean a denim shoe — a shoe made out of denim?’” Bovaird remembers. “Because to me, a ‘jean shoe’ is a shoe you put on with jeans. But he said, ‘No, no. It’s a shoe made out of jean material.’”

The shoe is later shown to be in Jupe’s possession as one of the many Gordy’s Home–related items he keeps in a secret museum in his office, a manifestation of his lingering trauma. But maybe the fabric of the strange shoe somehow connects to the alien, also known as Jean Jacket, named for a horse Em loved as a child? Bovaird is hesitant to answer one way or another.

“We’re just supposed to connect it all, but I’m not actually sure about the denim of it all,” she says. “And if you ask Jordan these questions, he’ll just say, ‘Yeah, if that’s what it means to you.’”