The Dung Beetle Turquoise Shell Gown of Charlize Theron in SWATH

If you want a reason to watch “Snow White and the Huntsman”, then it is Charlize Theron, her robust acting and the iconic and wild costumes.

No doubt Charlize brought the evil queen Ravena live on the screen, but it was the extraordinary vision and efforts of the designer Colleen Atwood that actually spiced up the queen’s evil glamour.

The three-time Oscar winner literally went wild when she was designing the costumes for Charlize. She created a turquoise and golden chiffon gown to depict the queen’s rotting phase. And for a perfect touch of dark drama, the gown was crafted from the shells of dung beetles.

Atwood told Hollywood Reporter the interesting story of this costume’s creation. She mentioned that the Director Rupert Sanders wanted a progressively rooting look for the queen’s character. He wanted the look to tell the audience about the queen’s physical and psychic decay and also her madness.

With this vision Atwood started her search, and while searching for unique materials in Thailand, she came across mounds of discarded shells of dung beetles at a flea market. She instantly got this idea of creating a crumbling dress with this material.

The dung beetles are eaten in Thailand as a source of protein. It is so popular that they are farmed here in a large scale. So availability was never a problem. Colleen could get as much required.

But it was really difficult for her sewers to sew them, because the beautiful jewel-like turquoise shells were ‘razor sharp’ and ‘treacherous’ to handle. The sewers literally had to drill the shells to sew them. They used gloves to protect their hands from the sharp cuts.

The end result of such painstaking efforts was a scraggy-shouldered, turquoise and gold chiffon floor sweeping gown that was made of brilliantly bright and shiny dung beetles shells. Sadly, we only get a dim glimpse of this marvelous creation in the movie.

Colleen Atwood, who previously won the Oscar for Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, is probably in- line again for the next Academy Awards.