Felix Krull is an impostor, a seducer, a master of staging - and like his creator Thomas Mann, he straddles the line between truth and façade. Anyone staging him on film not only has to think his character, but also dress him. In this interview, costume designer Lara Marie Kainz talks about her work on the hybrid documentary “Confessions of Thomas Mann the Impostor”, about playful processes, intuitive decisions - and about how a suit becomes a character. An approach to the exterior of a figure whose interior reveals so much about its author.
The interview was conducted by Marie Limbourg, research assistant at the Buddenbrockhaus Lübeck, with costume designer Lara Marie Kainz.
ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Thomas-Mann-Archiv / Fotograf: Unbekannt / TMA_5373
Film still from "Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Thomas Mann". © mindjazz pictures 2025
Was there a predetermined concept? I've just heard that you were allowed to be quite free. The question of a color concept would also be interesting here.
Of course, André Schäfer, the director, already had a clear basic idea, but he gave me a lot of freedom to develop the character together with the actor Sebastian Schneider. When I read the script for the first time, I knew that costume had to play a major role in this film. There was no color concept, I made most of the decisions intuitively.
How do you go about designing the costumes for a movie?
I prefer not to design characters, but to let them develop. To do this, I like to work from a costume collection and draw inspiration from there. I love letting myself drift and being able to draw on the diversity of the collected costume pieces. The theater art fund, where I worked mainly for film, is a real treasure. The use of the collection is also more sustainable and I'm always happy to bring special costume pieces from it back into the limelight.
How did your preoccupation with Thomas Mann influence the costumes?
Of course, the costume in the film has little to do with Thomas Mann's actual style of dress. In our film, we create an artificial character that combines elements of Thomas Mann and his character from the novel “Confessions of Felix Krull the Impostor” and is intended to convey a new understanding of Mann's life and work. Through the intensive examination of Thomas Mann and Felix Krull, we have succeeded in creating a liberated man who is both self-confident and tender at the same time. A figure who wants to make people fall in love with him and whose appearance casts a spell over others.
What was your favorite costume that you designed and why? (In this movie.)
I have to say, it's very difficult for me to choose a favorite costume. The fittings with Sebastian were a lot of fun, and many great outfits were created with great ease. If I had to choose one, it would be the first one I created for the movie. It's the costume you can see on the poster. When I saw Sebastian in the costume for the first time, I knew where the costume journey was going. For the poster, we took an archive photo of Thomas Mann as a template and recreated it with Sebastian at the original location in the Pacific Palace. That was something very special for all of us in the team and we felt very close to Thomas Mann.
To what extent can costume design be seen as an act of resistance against gender norms?
For me, clothing has no gender and the most important thing for me as a costume designer is that the costume brings the character to life and helps the actor to immerse themselves in the role. For me, the overall outfit has to fit and strengthen the story and the character of the role. I don't think it should surprise anyone if a man wears a skirt, for example. After all, this has always been part of traditional dress in many cultures. In my opinion, clothing has never really been tied to gender norms, but has always been an expression of culture, history and personal style.
Film still from "Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Thomas Mann". © mindjazz pictures 2025
