Putting together the Oscar-nominated costumes

(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)This year’s Oscar nominees for costume design whipped 90 yards of fabric into a ball dress and fashioned a 100-pound cloak from a sandwich of elk skin and rabbit fur. We asked the designers for the five nominated films to choose a garment or outfit that is emblematic of their team’s overall work.

PACO DELGADO FOR ‘THE DANISH GIRL'

Clothing is at the heart ofthe story of Einar Wegener, an actual Danish painter of the 1920s who began his transformation from man to woman by dressing in female clothes. Mr. Delgado’s team created about six men’s suits and more than 20 dressesfor Eddie Redmayne.

The costume designers began fitting Mr. Redmayne with dresses almost a year before shooting started, “finding clues, the sorts of shapes that were good for him, which colors would soften the shoulder bones,” Mr. Delgado says. This cream-colored “transitional” outfit, he says, is a man’s suit, but not quite, modified into a womanly cut, symbolic of Einar’s gender confusion.

“I think we achieved this ambiguity with it,” Mr. Delgado says. “The jacket is tailored as a ladies jacket. but still it had to look like a men’s suit. It was a ladies fabric, made of silk, and moved like silk, but it had the appearance more like a wool. The trousers look a little bit like a pajama pant. When we were creating it, I had in mindQuentin Crisp.”

When Mr. Redmayne’s character, who ultimately becomes Lili Elbe, wears this suit in a park in Paris, he is assaulted by two thugs who find it unnerving and threatening.

JENNY BEAVAN FOR ‘MAD MAX: FURY ROAD'

The Mad Max world,populated by War Boys, Rock Riders and Polecats, was a break from the buttoned-up Victorian settings in which Jenny Beavan outfitted characters formany Merchant-Ivory films. She won an Oscar for “A Room With a View.”

Influences included African art and found objects that might end up in a post-apocalyptic wardrobe. On location in Namibia for the film’s epic desert chases, the costume team employed local artisans who normally make leather wristbands or beaded figurines for tourists.

The artisans helped with leatherwork, distressing costumes, and assembling bizarre masks and outfits.

“I’d show them some drawings and then sort of set them off,” Ms. Beavan says.

The Buzzard character—seen briefly tooling around in a porcupine vehicle—is a vivid example. His headgear, of canvas, vellum and goggles, has a Russian military influence, Ms. Beavan says. Covering the character’s face served the production in another way, as the film had a core group of stunt people who played multiple parts.

SANDY POWELL FOR ‘CINDERELLA'

The sheer volume of labor and (sheer) fabric that went into Cinderella’s blue ball dress for the Kenneth Branagh-directedDisneymovie has given rise to a mythology of its own,costume designer Sandy Powellsays.

Almost 90 yards of fabric for each of eight copies of the gown. About 4 miles of thread in the hem. An estimated five hundred “man hours…or woman hours” per dress, she says.

The gown had to be both understated and the most eye-catching one at the Prince’s ball, “in a room of people that are already overdressed.”Ms. Powelldescribes the dress as “a feat of structural engineering.” It takes up space, but “I wanted it to look like it weighed nothing.”

There’s a flexible metal cage inside, about 6 feet in diameter at the bottom, providing a corseted Lily James with wiggle room for her legs.

“The most important thing the dress had to do was move. She dances, she runs away. It’s an action dress really,” Ms. Powell says.

SANDY POWELL FOR ‘CAROL'

Ms. Powell, a three-time Oscar winner, is a double nominee this year, for “Carol” and “Cinderella” (where she gave Cate Blanchett glamorously intimidating dresses asthe evil stepmother). For Ms. Blanchett’s portrayal of prosperous 1950shousewife Carol Aird, the wardrobe is pulled-together elegance based on late-1940 styles. Ms. Powell is especially proud of an outfit with which Carol makes a statement about herself: a pearl gray cocktail-length dress suit with a coral scarf and diamond brooch.

Carol wears it for her first date with Therese (Rooney Mara).“It had to serve a lot of purposes,” Ms. Powell says. “It’s her first date with Therese, so she’s trying to create an impression. Therese has to look at her and say ‘This woman is extraordinary.’ ” Later the same day, Carol attends a formal party with her husband and his friends, wearing the same gray outfit. The other women are in fancy full-length gowns, and Carol is underdressed for the occasion—on purpose. “It’s like an act of defiance. She’s not going to change her outfit. She was going to go as she was,” Ms. Powell says. Using clothes to define Carol’s attitude like that wasn’t in the script, Ms. Powell says. It isn’t something that every viewer notices yet it quietly strengthens the film’s story.

JACQUELINE WEST FOR ‘THE REVENANT'

During directorAlejandro G. Iñárritu’sgrueling shoot of“The Revenant,” costumes served two purposes: looking authentic on screen and keeping the actors from freezing on locations such as Alberta. Tom Hardy’s outfit had two layers of elk skin with rabbit fur in between, weighing nearly 100 pounds. “We couldn’t find a hanger that wouldn’t bend or break,” says costume designer Jacqueline West.

Leonardo DiCaprio carried similar weight with his bearskin coat. It was real grizzly fur, with the head and claws still on, acquired from the Canadian parks department. Other furs came from a trading company run by Canada’s First Nations people.Mr. DiCaprio’s character, Hugh Glass, is mauled by a bear and left for dead. His fellow fur trappers strip the bear of its meat and leave the animal’s body behind.

“It tells the story of man and animals using each other to survive,” Ms. West says.

“The bear that came so close to killing him is the item that saves his life.” Glass, an actual American frontiersman, is presented as spiritual rather than mercenary. “I wanted him to be sort of monk-like,” Ms. West says. For reference she showed the director an illustration of a hooded warrior from the Arikara tribe and an icon depicting a Russian monk. Using fake bearskin rugs, the costumers practiced how the actor could wear the bear, coming up with a sort of grizzly poncho.