In ‘Anora,’ Bandage Dresses and Basketball Shorts Fashion the American Dream

In the whirlwind film Anora, a working-class stripper and sex worker, Ani (Mikey Madison), impulsively marries Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch yearning to stay in the United States, where he has unfettered access to his family’s exorbitant wealth. The tale is the latest in The Florida Project and Red Rocket director Sean Baker’s oeuvre, much of which is marked by his portrayal of sex workers in America.

Jocelyn Pierce, the film’s costume designer, sees Anora as a story of the American Dream. Ani and Vanya are each searching for a kind of salvation that the myth of America promises. Ani is attempting to hustle her way out of the working class, while Ivan sees America as a hedonistic paradise, an escape from the responsibilities and expectations of life in Russia.

Pierce uses clothing to telegraph some of those ideas of hope, possibility, and ambition. “There are actually very few saturated colors in the costumes. There are a lot of blacks and neutrals and metallics, but the colors we did choose to really pop are red and blue,” she says. Pierce points to Ani’s vibrant blue Hervé Léger bandage dress (her personal favorite), which the character wears on her first trip to Ivan’s compound. “The color just pops so beautifully off of the New York winter, the cool neutrals of the mansion, and off of those red sheets. It also feels like a symbol. A symbol of aspirational dressing—dress for the job you want—and ultimately of the American Dream.”