The speciality costumes of Supergirl, made at FBFX
Updated: Aug 12
Creating costumes for Supergirl was a huge team effort at FBFX. Working closely with costume designers Anna B Sheppard and Michael Mooney and their talented team, the brief called on the skills of our soft costume, workshop, dimensional print, digital and electronics departments - as well as a new crew assembled to create cinema’s first practical inflatable spacesuit!
FBFX’s work for the film included Supergirl’s striking suit, Lobo’s leather and chains, costume elements for the villainous Krem and his band of Brigands, three space pirates, two fantastical spacesuits and one beautiful neural scanner for Kara’s journey from Krypton to Earth.
The Supergirl suit
Milly Alcock’s first appearance as Supergirl was in 2025’s Superman, with wonderful costume design by Judianna Makovsky.
The suit for 2026’s Supergirl was an all-new costume built on the great work of Judianna and her team, with costume designers Anna B. Sheppard and Michael Mooney’s suit featuring changes to the belt, boots, skirt and glyph.
It’s a clean, form-fitting look, and a design that appears simple is often the hardest to make! Everything needs to be crisp and precise, zips and fixings completely hidden in a suit where there’s nowhere to hide.
Patterns were hand-drawn, scanned and digitised, then cloth simulation used to ensure the dimensional print and stretch of all the pieces worked in harmony. Every panel of fabric on the body suit, shorts and skirt was dimensionally printed.
The lines on the Supergirl suit, shared with the latest version of the Superman suit, needed to really flex, stretch and twist with the action. After experimenting with different versions, stretchy silicone and plastisol were incorporated to keep pace with the action.
The blue body suit in particular was beautifully cut, made with several different fabrics bonded to allow varying levels of stretch and return. This allowed the suit to hold its shape without wrinkling while moving with the performer, no matter how demanding the stunt work. The collar was fashioned without buttons or zips spoiling the clean lines.
The all-important glyph, which was altered from the cameo on Superman, involved multicolour castings and was subtly moulded to form. The belt was built to be super light and flexible, moving with the action without cracking.
The cape needed to attach seamlessly with no lumps and bumps, yet stay securely attached during action scenes. FBFX’s soft costume team designed bespoke fixings that elegantly attached the cape to a strengthened section of the suit.
The fabulous boots were made by Jeff Churchill and the Jitterbug Boy team in Toronto.
Lobo
Lobo’s costume called for spikes, skulls, leather and plenty of chains.
FBFX’s soft costume team made the leather trousers, based on motorbike trousers with ribbed piping sections.
The workshop team fabricated spiked, armoured boots, thigh armour, a knuckle duster, knuckle pieces for the gloves and vambraces. One vambrace was armoured and the other spiked, wound with the chain from Lobo’s gutting hook. The skull belt buckle was designed using several different species before the final look was settled on!
Lengths of chain were computer designed, with several different link sizes and designs tried out before the final versions were decided on, 3D printed in tough nylon, and plated.
The armoured elements were cast out in stunt safe compounds - real metal spikes aren’t ideal for fight scenes - and art-finished by our paint team.
The silver grenade necklace was made by Michael Mooney’s in-house team, and the leather vest made in-house by Angela Pledge.
Ruthye's inflatable spacesuit
Supergirl features cinema’s first practical inflatable spacesuit and FBFX, specialist spacesuit manufacturers for over 30 years, couldn’t resist the challenge of making it! It was completely different to anything done before and called for the creation of several new processes.
The first step was taking wonderful design iterations by costume concept artist Phil Hope and creating 3D CAD models.
In order to recreate the precise forms and structures in the design, the tools used to build it were digitally designed.
The suit was then fabricated using high temperature resin tools dipped into PVC and dyed exactly the right shade of bubblegum pink.
The process required a super-hot oven, which FBFX bought from a bakery.
The Ruthye suit was also FBFX’s first time making a completely clear space helmet - a challenge as electronics can usually be hidden inside a helmet. Two versions were made in polyurethane; a harder ‘hero’ version and a soft stunt copy.
The Ruthye suit had to stay inflated throughout scenes, meaning internal fans needed to provide enough oomph - and quietly. They also had to look unnoticeable in the clear suit. FBFX designed a bespoke fan and electronics, operated via a handheld DMX controller.
The suit was worn over a beautiful orange undersuit with gold accents, manufactured by FBFX’s soft costume team.
Not all the Ruthye spacesuits were designed to inflate. Separate suits were required for scenes where the suit has been deflated, with the PVC panels crumpled and shrunk using heat.
Supergirl’s gold spacesuit
During a close-quarters punch-up with Sklarian Raiders on the space bus, Kara climbs into a gold spacesuit but is blasted into space before she has a chance to put on the helmet.
Costume designers Anna B. Sheppard and Michael Mooney created an emergency suit that would adapt to fit any extra-terrestrial creature who needed it.
The beautiful gold fabric for the suit (seen here as a work in progress) was specially created at FBFX. Two versions of the suit were made by our soft costume team; one with long arms and legs and another using the exact same volume of fabric fitted to Milly Alcock.
The helmet was made in the workshop with vacuum cast visors, and finished with the gold fabric.
The visual gag of the gold suit fitting to the wearer was created with practical effects - drawstrings sewn into the costume. The arms and legs on the gold suit made by FBFX’s soft costume team stretched 10 feet when extended!
The Sklarian Raiders
Costumes for space tech pirates the Sklarian Raiders called on the skills of the whole FBFX team.
Jackets, trousers, gloves and gaiters were made by the soft costume department, featuring pleated inserts, ribbed piping, ruched panels and stretched scuba fabric.
The armour was made up of pauldrons, chest plates embedded with large gems made in the workshop, vambraces, leather belts and thigh plates, all aged and finished with graffiti motifs by the paint team.
Kara’s neural scanner
The neural scanner Kara wears in her escape pod during her journey from Argo City to Earth was fabricated by a team headed up by Electronics Design Engineer Simon Lawrence and lead programmer Wayne Buttigieg.
The scanner featured 2,172 individually addressable RGB LEDS, controlled by FBFX’s custom handheld DMX Pro running different pre-programmed lighting patterns.
Brigands
For the Brigands, FBFX worked with the brilliant in-house team, reproducing thousands of separate pieces of armour that could be incorporated into the costumes for Krem’s ruthless gang of outlaws.
There were 2,380 separate armour pieces all in, including soft horns moulded to a rubbery consistency so they would compress, rather than bending or breaking, during action sequences.
Krem
FBFX’s work on villain Krem was another close collaboration with the Supergirl costume team.
Real metal armour pieces created in-house by Carl Summersgill were scanned and digitally positioned to work with other costume elements, then 3D printed and cast out in polyurethane to be incorporated into the costume.
We also mould and cast the leatherwork, made in-house by Kevin Giles.
