Gladiators costume designer says female stars always demanded same three things

20 January 2024 , 11:36

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Gladiators costume designer says female stars always demanded same three things

Gladiators costume designer, Stephen Adnitt, has revealed the three things that the female stars from the original series always asked for, as well as shedding light on the most demanding showbiz star her worked for during his distinguished career.

Stephen believes that the costumes for the current BBC reboot of the hit show were influenced by his original designs in the nineties, when the stars of the then ITV show asked of him to design costumes that "show more midriff, show more leg, show more cleavage."

The 75-year-old said that while the Gladiators were pleased with their costumes, there was one person who he has labelled his most "demanding", and that's late pop singer and TV presenter, Cilla Black, who took him to task over a burlesque-inspired costume for the 2001 Royal Variety Performance, in which she was performing a daring routine alongside Barbara Windsor and Paul O'Grady.

The original Gladiators

Stephen worked with Cilla during the height of her TV fame, when she presented primetime shows like Blind Date and Surprise Surprise in the 80s and 90s. He said about the legendary performer: "[I] ended up working with her for about 40 years. I liked her a lot. She could be quite demanding. She was definitely in charge. She would listen but if she didn't necessarily like something, she would say."

The Gladiators job was a different proposition, with Stephen admitting he had to rethink his designs after facing the powerhouse athletes in person. The ITV series ran from 1992 to 2000 and Stephen said that he even had to design the outfits for the cheerleaders, who helped whip up the crowd at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena during filming.

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Speaking about the costume designs, Stephen told MailOnline : "The Gladiators wanted to show all their bodies, everything showing. When I did the original costumes I tried to make different shapes for everyone – some had two-pieces, some one-pieces, some shorter legs, some higher up.

"As it went on and people got more familiar with the series, and the Gladiators were getting more publicity and as bodybuilders, they’d want to show more. They decided themselves it would be nice to show more midriff, show a lot more leg, show a bit more cleavage. The smaller the costumes got, fitting the logos on got harder to do. Lightning was one whose outfit got tighter - Jet again, her symbol itself was quite tiny by the time we finished. It was all good fun and one of the first big sports-themed game shows."

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Stephen revealed his process in producing the designs for the original Gladiators, recalling: "When I started sketching, I did two different designs - the American original version of the show was still up and running so I had that to look at before going away and chatting with the producer. Of the two designs, they chose to go with what was my favourite even though they were more expensive to produce."

The designer continued: "I did an alternative because it would be cheaper - with a design based on a circuit board, I don’t know why - but I was pleased they went with the first. It then became a question of getting it right with everyone’s name, adding on different images according to what each Gladiator was called. My images tended to be slightly tattoo-ish – I say that, although I personally hate tattoos. Rhino had a rhino, that was straightforward enough. Some influences were old Roman imagery – Warrior had a helmet. Everybody had their own image. We’d bandy around the names we were given, as to what might work best, but sometimes they were difficult."

Once it came to the first fitting, Stephen said that he came up against another unforeseen issue: "The first one in for his fitting was Warrior. We'd got all the measurements for the lycra but when he came in I was amazed at just how big he was - he was so big. They were proper bodybuilders - some of them were more huge than we expected. We had to refit him, re-do his outfit, but after that we got into the swing of things."

James Brinsford