Costume design in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, starring Michael Cera, Scott Pilgrim fights to defeat all seven evil exes of his new girlfriend Ramona in a world of video game effects and superpowers.  

When we first see Scott Pilgrim, we see him in basically the same thing that we will see him wear throughout the entire movie. A graphic tee-shirt with blue jeans. I think that this wardrobe is supposed to show that he is a dorky and awkward character as well to set him apart from all of Ramona’s evil exes who all tend to wear very punk outfits.  

When we first see Ramona, she has bright pink hair, a navy green jacket, blue jeans and a pair of roller skates. Since this is the first time we see her, it gives the impression that she will is unlike a lot of the characters we have met so far since most of them have quite neutral colored hair and clothes. The second time that we see Ramona she is wearing a pink button up shirt along with her pink hair. Her outfit and hair contrasts the rest of the people at the party who are all wearing more neutral colors. Again, this is an example of Ramona’s bright color choice distinguishing her from the rest of the characters and showing that she will be an important character in the movie.  

One small detail that I noticed in the movie is that when Scott was going up against Ramona’s third evil ex (who was wearing a white shirt with a black letter three on it), Scott was wearing a black shirt with the word “zero” in white. I think this is interesting because in the last scene of the movie where Scott is fighting the seventh evil ex, that ex says that Scott is zero compared to everyone else. I thought that this was a small but interesting detail in the movie’s costume design.  

At the end of the movie, Scott had left his band and went to a party where they were playing. At this party, his band were all wearing nice black and white outfits compared to the usual jeans and graphic shirts that they wore when Scott was in the band. I think this was meant to show how different the band was after Scott left.  

The final evil ex is Gideon who when we see him, he wears fancy outfits that look expensive. In the last fighting scene of the movie, the fancy outfit makes him seem much more powerful than Scott who is still wearing the graphic shirt and blue jeans outfit.  

Overall, I thought that the costume design of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was good. I think that it did a god job at using clothing styles and colors to distinguish each character as well as set certain characters apart from each other.