IN THEATERS NATIONWIDE MARCH 25 DEBSMOVIE.COM

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1 A LOOK INTO THE FASHION OF IN THEATERS NATIONWIDE MARCH 25

2 Though they may look like sugar and spice, there is nothing nice about the girls of D.E.B.S. Trained to be an elite crime-fighting team, D.E.B.S. can take on the worst of the worst, and still come out looking fabulous in their pleated plaid micro-minis. But behind every stylish woman is a styling man. His name is frank helmer, and he had a hand in hiking up these ladies ultra-high hemlines.

3 Costume designer Frank Helmer began his fashion career designing for an independently produced clothing line based in Seattle, WA. Very much a film lover, Frank met an independent producer who invited him to come out to L.A. to work as a costume designer on a student film. I thought that sounded like fun. so i came to l.a., made this student film, stayed here, apprenticed, assisted, and made my way. And he certainly did on the set of D.E.B.S.

4 While working with the girls of D.E.B.S., drawing inspiration was easy. Several things inspired D.E.B.S., the most obvious being the classic schoolgirl look, adapted for young women. There s a comic book aesthetic where things are slightly exaggerated as far [character] silhouettes, and obviously the skirts are short and sexy, not full-cut, schoolgirl skirts. [Director] Angela [Robinson] and I talked a lot with the production designer, to make [D.E.B.S.] pop out a little bit, but not making it too Technicolor. We [were after] a Pop aesthetic.

5 I love working with Angela. She got where I wanted to go and I got where she wanted to go, so we worked very closely, especially in the first few weeks of prep, determining which particular plaid [to use], how short should we go, how sexy do we want certain things to be, seeing how great! far can we push the limits. It was really

6 One of Frank s biggest challenges was creating a distinctive look for each character, even though all four are wearing the same uniform. Each character has their own forte in the storyline. Amy is the perfect score, Janet the prim and proper one. And Dominique is the French foreign exchange student. They each had their own individual aesthetic, so the idea was to dress them to suit their character. Max is the leader, the alpha-dog, if you will, and so she s a got a toughness, but she s also really sexy, so she wears a butch tanktop and boots. Amy always has knee socks, and Janet almost always has a sweater because she s the prissy one and she s almost always covered up, and Dominique s skirt is so short because she has legs for days.

7 Character development carried through below the surface. The character underwear came into play because of the stunts, because we needed to have coverage that was appropriate, so we re not flashing some white granny panties. Dominique was wearing lacy French underwear, Max was wearing boy briefs, Janet had prissy little underwear, and Amy had a thong. We just took it to that extreme, because that was all a part of the characters; it was who those girls were. It s what they would wear.

8 Lucy Diamond, D.E.B.S. nemesis and love interest to D.E.B.S. star player Amy had to both look evil, yet remain visually seductive, even to a D.E.B. Lucy needed to be a strong sexy woman. We wanted her to be perceived as evil, even though, as you see in the movie, she s not as evil as everyone makes her out to be. But we wanted to give her a severe look, but also make her] sexy and feminine. Jordana [Brewster] is beautiful, so it was really easy. She could carry off the clean, black lines and the deeply plunging necklines and really pull it off. And again, it was a certain archetypical comic book character where the villains always wear black.

9 Not only did the girls of D.E.B.S. have to battle Lucy Diamond, they had to do it in heels. A lot of [the work involved was] getting the right shoes, matching heights as best we could, and making sure the shoes were comfortable because they were in them a lot and doing a lot of action sequences. the biggest things we worried about were the fight scenes! Dominique is in stilettos, and they all wear heels of some sort, so [getting shoes] that work with the stunts was a big challenge.

10 Who knew plaid could be so sexy? In fact, Frank is up front when asked what his thoughts are on Plaid as the New Black: Well of course it is! plaid is the new black, the old black and the current black! You read it here first. For those ladies wanting to capture the D.E.B.S. look for themselves, Frank offers this advice, Follow the mantra of D.E.B.S.: shorter and tighter!

11 THE GIRLS OF D.E.B.S. STEP OFF THE RUNWAY AND D INTO THEATERS NATIONWIDE ON MARCH 25. TE TIO OF WID