For costume designer Lucy Corrigan, the attraction to Life was the task of finding contrast between the different costumes, and the search for period fabrics.

She says, "I had to have the cotton milled for the prison costumes because the collars and the pockets changed from the 30’s and the 40’s."

In the end, the fabrics for Eddie and Martin’s street clothes were difficult to find because of the weights of the fabric.

Corrigan explains, "Even in the summer of 1932, they didn’t have light weight wool and nobody makes heavy weight wool anymore. In period films, clothes hang on the body in a very different way."

And clothes in the 1930’s were not known for their comfort. She adds, "They were hot and scratchy and that was just the way it was."

Corrigan used hundreds of costumes for the movie. She employed jewelry makers, belt makers and hat makers. She had seams sewn on the back of stockings. She had flowers made. Each piece all encompassing the passage of time.

"It was incredible. We would be shooting the 30’s and 40’s and fitting the 70’s and 50’s. The overlap was unbelievable. One day on set we were working with three different periods. There were extras walking around in 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 70’s costumes," says Corrigan.