Avatar: The Way of Water - Omatikaya Costume

From 2016 – 2022 Wētā Workshop collaborated with James Cameron, Jon Landau, and their team on 'Avatar: The Way of Water'.

The chance to build upon the design we helped to establish in 2009's 'Avatar' was an exciting opportunity for our concept design team. Led by Deborah L. Scott (Costume Designer), it was wonderful to revisit the costumes for the Omatikaya clan and go deeper into culture building to an even higher level of detail.

An interesting aspect of 'Avatar: The Way of Water' for the Omatikaya design is how the Sully family are influenced by the Metkayina clan when they take refuge in the reef clan village. The team needed to think about how the different materials available to them in this new environment would be incorporated into their costumes when they needed repair or new items of clothing. Who of the family would be more influenced by the culture and style of these reef living Na'vi?

Kiri is incredibly affected by her time spent in this new clan as she becomes more spiritually connected to Eywa, the guiding and balancing force behind all living things. Kiri's braided reef top (#7) was inspired by her growing spiritual awareness. At this point in the film, new materials begin to blend into her costume design. Notice the shell in the centre of the spiral of her garment. Given she would be swimming for the scenes where this is worn, this look needed to have beautiful movement in water. Our costume team chose braided raffia and glass beads for the fringe to give it a ‘seaweed-like’ movement.

Working in tandem with Wētā Workshop's textiles team helped to define the realism of the costume items we were creating. Our concept designers were able to incorporate physical samples of weaving and decorative elements into their images to give Deb and James a very clear impression of the design's intention. And it provided the CG modelers of the final film assets a very solid starting point.

Fun fact: We filmed a lot of the costumes that we created under water, for movement reference for the VFX artists at WētāFX. The costumes were worn by some of our team swimming in blue “Na’vi' onezies", tails included.

Art Directors: Stephen Crowe 
Na'vi Costume Art Director: Flo Foxworthy
Production Managers: Yalda Armian & Tasha Guillot 
Design project coordinators: Elspeth Grant & Milli Griffin