How do the Fallout show's Vault suits look so good? Niche Italian fabric, it turns out
I've never seen anyone look as good in a Vault suit as the actors in the Fallout show. The licensed Vault-Tec jumpsuits you can get from costume stores are spandex disasters, but even more expensive Vault suits aimed at cosplayers look a bit pajama-like. The show's jumpsuits, however, are form-fitting without being superhero-tight, and don't seem to limit movement whatsoever—they look comfy, but also cool, or at least as cool as a blue and yellow jumpsuit that designates you as a sheltered nerd can look.
Well, there's a reason. Vault 33's main sartorial advantage was of course having a team of expert costumers on hand to custom make their outfits, but those retro sci-fi tailors also had a secret weapon: hard-to-get Italian fabric.
In the games, Vault suits do sometimes cling to muscles, but Fallout show costume designer Amy Westcott, whose other credits include Black Swan, Nightcrawler, and The Wrestler, wanted to avoid «shiny, spandex, sort of superheroes stuff.»
«We were dealing with real people with real bodies,» Westcott said in a recent interview with PC Gamer. «So it was a lot about what could look universally flattering in a way that wasn't skin tight, you know, and wouldn't make everybody feel terrible and self conscious, but had a cool [look]. It's almost like we followed a bit of an aviation suit, you know, where you zip it up and use that. So it was tight, but it wasn't within an inch of its life kind of tight.»
To achieve the fit, Westcott sought out a «matte fabric that had a four way stretch.» After making multiple prototype vault suits with different fabrics, Fallout's costume department landed on a niche Italian product from a company called Mectex, which Westcott also relied on for 2013 sci-fi movie After Earth. Importing small batch fabric from Italy added complications to the department's task, but Mectex made «hands down» the best fabric for the job, said Westcott.
I suggested that cosplayers might be disappointed to know that looking as good as
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