Gareth Pugh and Carson McColl on dressing for a zombie apocalypse

When Gareth Pugh was 14 years old, he began working as a costume designer for the National Youth Theatre. Now, exactly 28 years later, Pugh – alongside husband Carson McColl – is the costume and production designer on Danny Boyle’s epic zombie horror, coincidentally called 28 Years later. 

Most people will know the Sunderland-born designer for his haunting, avant-garde fashion shows or decade-long relationship with Chrome Hearts, but in more recent years, his focus has been Hard + Shiny, the London-based independent creative studio that he started with co-creative director McColl in 2018. 

Since then, the duo has designed for Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, collaborated with the New York City Ballet, the Opéra Garnier and London’s Royal Opera House. They’ve partnered with Somerset House (where their studio is based), and explored countless creative endeavours including costume, production, set and theatre design. 

After being hired by Boyle in 2023 to work on Free Your Mind, the Matrix-inspired dance production hosted at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, the legendary film director came calling once again when it came to the third instalment of his cult zombie film series. Out now, 28 Years Later – which follows 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks later (2007) – is the first in a trilogy of new films Boyle is making as part of the series. 

Last week, we spoke to Danny Boyle himself, while this week, we’re catching up with Pugh and McColl to talk all things costume and production. Below, the pair discuss their biggest challenges, parallels with haute couture, and what they’d do in a zombie apocalypse. 

How are you both today and what are you up to? 

Carson McColl: We’re good. Busy. 

Gareth Pugh: We’re actually working with Danny Boyle again on a massive project for 2026, but we’re NDA’ed up to the eyeballs, so we’ll have to save that for another day. 

What was the starting point for your research on 28 Years Later?

Carson McColl: To be honest, it all happened so fast, we basically just had to fully immerse ourselves in the script, and then start pulling together reference images. We pulled from everything we could think of – from war photography to performance art, youth culture and isolationist cults, preppers manuals, books on nature and disease, and landscape photography. Eventually, every wall in our studio was covered in imagery.

What was it like designing costumes for a society that ground to a halt in 2002? 

Gareth Pugh: It required a completely new way of thinking. In our work in fashion, we always wanted everything to be so slick and precise. Razor sharp. This was the complete opposite of that. This meant getting into a mindset where there’s no production of new clothing for 20 odd years, beyond rudimentary handmade things, so everything we had to work with would have to be from 2002 or before, and would need to be mismatched, well worn, patched up and incredibly broken down, which was really fun.

Carson McColl: There was actually quite a strange nostalgic aspect to our costume research. Spike has an old, beat-up version of the same backpack the kids in my high school were wearing in 2002, for example. It was the same on the production design side: there’s a scene in a living room where we chose the exact same carpet my grandparents had in their living room in the early 00s and the same wavy CD stand from Argos. And don’t even get me started on the Teletubbies.

What makes the clothes fit for an apocalyptic world? 

Gareth Pugh: Function. Everything has to have a function. There would be so little vanity post-apocalypse and that was one of the first things we said about our survivors in the movie: vanity was out of the window. It’s about day-to-day survival, so everything needed to be functional and utilitarian for it to ring true, or it to exist in a believable world.

Everything has to have a function. There would be so little vanity post-apocalypse

What’s the most challenging part of designing for film and TV, and how does it compare to designing a fashion collection? 

Gareth Pugh: Multiples! So each principal character needs multiple versions of their look, for stunt work, doubles, especially if there’s blood work, and there was a lot of that! So that was a challenge. Especially when things have been made to look carefully hand-repaired over many, many years. It took such skill and patience. Sometimes the handwork was so intricate, and it demanded so much from the team that it felt more like a couture house than anything.

Carson McColl: It’s also very different working with actors as opposed to models or dancers. Actors come to the first meeting with an image or a feeling in mind for this character, so they can be really particular. It quickly becomes pure collaboration. I remember Jodie [Comer] coming to a fitting, and we had her in an old grungey pair of biker boots, but she thought they were too cool for Isla. So she went away, and when she came back, we offered her a little pair of beaten-up tan brogues – they looked like something from a bygone era – and they just worked perfectly. 

Where did you source the clothes?

Gareth Pugh: I can say hand on heart that there’s probably not a single charity shop in the North East that we didn’t hit up at least once. So we bought a lot of second-hand clothing and then worked into it, beat it up, broke it all down. We also had to source specialist pieces from all over the UK and Europe – things like Jamie’s old London Fire Brigade jacket, and all of the military gear. We also created several original pieces. So Spike, Kelson and Isla’s looks are all original makes. 

What were the biggest challenges and proudest moments of production design? 

Gareth Pugh: The set for Kelson’s Bone Temple has to be both our most challenging and proudest moment. We were told that they just don’t build sets like that anymore; it’s usually all CGI. But Danny was determined that it had to be real, and he wanted something people hadn’t seen on screen before, so we had to deliver. 

It all started life as a little model we made in our studio, made from wooden skewers from Nisbets. To see it eight weeks later being built in Redmire in North Yorkshire, full-scale, was kind of breathtaking. It took months! There were moments when the two of us would just go there alone on weekends, mid-build, and sit in silence looking at it. It was a very special experience.

Do you remember watching 28 Days Later for the first time? 

Carson McColl: Oh my god, of course. It’s seared into my mind. I think it is for a lot of people. That frenetic, suffocating feeling, mixed with an anarchic, lo-fi cinematic style. It’s an absolute classic. Also, I know everybody remembers Cillian on Westminster Bridge, but it was all about his chemistry with Naomi Harris for me. Selena was the fucking coolest. Top dog. And Jim knew it. With her leather trench coat and her machete. Absolute icon. 

Have you always been fans of horror? 

Gareth Pugh: Of course. I think the thing with horror is, it can help make sense of the world around us. Everything can seem so fucked up, but you can’t go through life overwhelmed by it all the time, even if many of us often are. Horror as a genre creates an entertainment space to engage with our worst nightmares, so we can look them in the eye and try to come to terms with them. The things we do. The things we can become. 

Carson McColl: It can also be political. There’s a strong political subtext to 28 Years Later, and we were alive to that when we read the script. It’s not so much offering a portal into a ‘what if?’ scenario, as it is holding up a mirror. That was part of the reason we were excited to get involved. 

Horror as a genre creates an entertainment space to engage with our worst nightmares, so we can look them in the eye and try to come to terms with them

What was the first horror film that terrified you and what are your favourites to this day? 

Gareth Pugh: The first horror that truly terrified me has to be Nightmare on Elm Street, but then again, I did watch it when I was 10, so no wonder. I can still remember the image I would conjure of Freddie’s spiked glove scratching at the door in my parents’ house when I pelted up the stairs in the dark. It was so vivid, absolutely terrifying! But my all-time favourite horror has to be The Shining.  

Carson McColl: I saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre far too young at a friend’s house and that scared the living shit out of me. I didn’t get over it for weeks. I’m still not over it. 

What would be your plan of action if a zombie apocalypse hit London? 

Carson McColl: I’ve actually discussed this extensively with our friend Melissa, who was the costume illustrator on the movie. We’ve looked at it in some detail. We’ve settled on a route and a meeting point. But that’s all I can say, really.

Do you have any apocalypse fashion advice? 

Gareth Pugh: Pockets should always be functional. And you better be running… fast.

If you could only take one thing with you, what would it be? 

Carson McColl: I don’t want to say a weapon because that’s a bit spicy, so I’ll just say a lighter. Preferably one of those big oversized novelty numbers you get in the pound shop. 

Gareth Pugh: I’d take Carson. Just think how safe we’d be with his massive pound shop lighter.

28 Years Later is out now