I imagine it was a really extensive research process. How much historic material was there to go through?

There are large gaps in the historical reference photos of Priscilla. We did fill in the blanks for certain things. And then our movie really takes place in their day-to-day lives. Obviously, some of those very public moments are captured in the film, but then we were left to our imaginations as to what she might wear. I think a big part of developing her as a character and as a person was about ageing her appropriately and staying true to the era. She did have a more childish silhouette in the late 50s and then kind of progressed into a more adult silhouette later on.

She’s just 14 years old at the beginning of the film and I couldn’t help but think of Sandy in Grease – she has that perfectly curled ponytail and the big poodle skirt silhouette in a lot of her earlier looks. Was that inspired by your research?

Obviously, there’s the wave goodbye. And there are a few photos of her from then. In half of them she has a fuller skirt and in the other half she has a slimmer skirt. It’s the late 50s, so there are both silhouettes in that time. But although sometimes she had a slimmer skirt in real life, we chose to make her skirts fuller so that we could maintain that childish silhouette early on and then progress into a more adult shape. I also want to say a big part of that is hair and make-up – Cliona [Furey], Jo [MacNeil] and the team were amazing.

Priscilla: a conversation with costume designer Stacey Battat on creating the dreamy outfits in Sofia Coppola’s latest film