“We work together so often, it’s kind of an open-ended conversation,” Mizrahi says of their collaborative approach. “It’s always flattering when he asks, because he has other people he works with, and I always say yes. I don’t think I’ve ever said no because he has such good taste in music.” Mizrahi continued: “But the minute he mentioned he was working on [The Look of Love], I thought, ‘Well, he’s going to ask me to do the costumes.’ Not because he brought it up, but because he knows how I feel about Burt Bacharach, and that it would be so hurtful if he didn’t. You know what I mean? He knew he had no choice but to ask me to do the costumes.”
Because they’ve been working together for so long, the designer can usually recognize what Morris is looking for when he calls upon him—though that doesn’t mean he always gets it right on the first try. “He usually approaches me when there’s a color kind of feature about the music,” Mizrahi said, adding that it was Morris who helped him realize that he has synesthesia, which is commonly used to describe people who are able to see music as colors.
“I thought to make these kinds of tunics that were bifurcated, completely cut in half, and the tops and the bottoms would be black and white, and they would just be this amazing kind of sophisticated geometric thing,” Mizrahi explained about his initial ideas for The Look of Love. “And so I presented it to him and he was like, ‘Oh that’s a good idea, but no, keep thinking about it.” Mizrahi went back to the music, and came up with a rich color palette of dusty magentas, mossy greens, and mustard-y yellows anchored by bright poppy red, lavenders, and orange-y oranges. “With Mark, the music always dictates what the show is,” Mizrahi adds.