Chappell Roan dubbed ‘visionary’ for ‘beautiful’ SNL promo outfit

Chappell Roan’s appearance on Saturday Night Live featured an intricately designed outfit made by Project Runway alum Gunnar Deatherage.

Roan, who debuted a country song during her performance, donned the elaborate piece during the promo. The dramatic look, inspired by burlesque dancers from the 1900s, featured dragonfly wings emerging from the Good Luck, Babe! Hitmaker’s hips, as well as huge headpiece.

Revealing details of the crafty process, Deatherage told People, “It’s been such a gift, honestly, to create such cool, complex things and then let so many people see them.”

“As we kept building and the look kept evolving and getting cooler and more complex, it was apparent that this look needed to be seen in a more stationary moment, rather than jumping around on stage,” Deatherage explained.

“Because the last thing we wanted to do is prohibit Chappell from being able to be Chappell on stage — prohibit the magic,” he remarked.

He went on to reveal that it took a month to create the outfit, which he made with help of his boyfriend Christopher Minafo and Katie Maimi.

“It’s actually the most complex look that we’ve done,” he revealed. “I think a lot of that was because… we were originally thinking that it had to hold up to an hour-long performance. So we really took those precautions to make sure that everything was made really beautifully.”

“I think she is so visionary, and she has made such fun calls on when costumes will have their best moment,” he said of Chappell’s call to sport the look in the promo rather than during her performance. “I trusted her [to make] the decision, and I think that it was really the right move after seeing how beautiful the promo [for SNL] came out.”