New York acts differently than anywhere else; it has its own look, its own vernacular. Whether it’s the Wall Street power suit, the jeans-and-heels fashion crowd, or the Uptown Tims and Polo, New Yorkers dress up for the occasion, because that’s just what you do. Costume designer Caily Breneman’s job was to capture the energy of the city in the new film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.

The film stars John Turturro as an old-school pickpocket, whose lucky score turns into a bad break when he unknowingly swipes a crypto-wallet from a young and vicious mob scion, played by Will Price.

Breneman’s work shows just how intimate the art of picking a pocket is, through placements of hidden pockets, open zippers and all the details we don’t notice, until it’s too late.

The costumes are an exercise in contrast, showing the old New York in more the classic tailoring of Turturro and Steve Buscemi, versus the online and on-trend New York of Price and his hangers on.

We spoke with Breneman about those choices, as well as dressing other icons like Giancarlo Esposito and Jamie Lee Curtis. But first, we had to ask about that overcoat…

I wanted to ask first about the coat that John Tuturro wears in the film. In our Q&A, he mentioned that it was put together with Zegna. Is that correct?

I had a lot of research images, and I always wanted it to be an overcoat. I was planning to make the coat, and John had even purchased a peacoat as part of his research. Noah [Segan, director] was still in LA at the time John and I first started collaborating, but when Noah got to New York, the three of us talked about it.

In between that time, John had walked the Zegna runway in Milan, and he wore this gorgeous salt-and-pepper coat with a big fur collar. We decided to see if they’d make us a coat, and they said yes. There were some slight design tweaks made, and they were gracious enough to send a sketch and a swatch. It was very important to John that he wear something he had never worn in another movie, and he had never worn salt and pepper. And I love salt and pepper, so it all came together.

Was there anything you kept in mind to make sure that was an ideal pickpocket coat.

Initially we were going to build a huge interior pocket so that John could just swipe and drop it into his coat. But when we got the physical coat, it had such nice deep pockets, which is one of the things I told Zegna was important for the character. We did some rehearsals and realized it was ideal as it was. He also had a good interior chest pocket, so you could go either here [at chest height], or down by the hips, where a typical pocket is.

Did you learn anything about how to avoid having your belongings stolen while you were researching the film?

I definitely realized how careless I am. I’m always walking around with my purse unzipped. I think everybody is so distracted on their phones, especially these days, and I’ve noticed people walking down the street with their backpacks unzipped. So, one of the things I learned was to be a little more protected and a little less trusting. We all talked about how we’ve changed our ways since working with Apollo Robbins, our pickpocket tech advisor.

How did you work with him?

He advised us about building the interior pocket. He came to the office once during prep, and we tried the costume on with him there. He, John, and Noah were rehearsing, and then Apollo and I had a long conversation about what John would need to be believable in the film. That was great advice. Then he came to set at least once to advise John and see all his hard work. It was very cool.

How did you weave in the contrast between the old and the new New York? You have the Buscemi character, who has such a strong ’70s New York vibe. Tell me about pulling pieces for him and why you felt that ’70s look was right for him.

I really wanted the characters, especially John’s and Steve’s and Giancarlo Esposito’s, to feel like they were still living their heyday. Giancarlo’s character is going through the same thing as John’s character, just in a different way. He’s being pushed out of the department. Steve’s character is probably not making as much as he used to in his pawn shop, because nobody carries cash. But we really wanted his character to feel like a teddy bear.

One of our first ideas was track suits, and we tried some on, but Steve felt very strongly that he would still get dressed to go to work, which I loved. It showed that he takes his job and his life seriously. We wanted the film to feel timeless outside of Dylan and his group. So we leaned heavily into the ’90s for John and Giancarlo. And Steve, I think, just naturally looks cool in ’70s-type clothing. That’s a vintage Prada shirt that he’s wearing. It fit him and fit the vibe.

I was shopping at one of the vintage malls in Chinatown when we found his velour sweater. It’s funny, because we were talking about him wearing a velour track suit, and when we found that velour striped sweater that he wears for the second half of the movie, it was the perfect middle ground of getting dressed for our heroes, John and Steve and Giancarlo. We really wanted to tell their story through texture, so that when we got to people like Dylan, we could tell the story through shine and color. It looks nice together, but it’s still that contrast.

Dylan and his gang are flamboyant in their own way. And he ended up having the track suit in the film.

I was just telling someone I didn’t realize that, but I love to tell a New York story through coats, because we wear them so much.

For Dylan, with Will, it was interesting because he also wanted to collaborate a lot, which I love. We were texting a lot, which is the antithesis of how John and I collaborated. John is a phone-call guy. We met in person; we went to lunch together. Will and I were texting and sending photos back and forth. He said, “Have you bought anything that you’re really excited about yet?” I sent the photo of the coat, and he loved it. I think we only ended up trying on two outfits in his fitting, because once we found the coat, we just built off that. We actually called Noah into the fitting because I was like, “I can keep going, but we’re not going to beat this.”

For him, we wanted to show that his gang participate more in the micro trend. What I love about the younger generation, especially the guys, is that they’re not afraid to be a little bit flamboyant, whereas the people I grew up with just wanted to fade into the background.

Jamie Lee Curtis character comes in with this East Coast elegance. What was your thought process when putting her look together?

I started with who I thought Moira was when I was doing my research. At first I thought maybe she was a wild child when she was growing up. But it seems Jamie’s character lived a life of obligation. She was married, her husband died, and she grew up in that life. Once she had to take over, she had to start dressing a little more seriously. She couldn’t be out having fun the way she once was, and she couldn’t draw too much attention to herself. Jamie said she didn’t feel her character had been touched in many years.

I came in with a bellhop cart full of clothes, and she was like, “You brought too much.” She wanted to tell the story through shoes, which was great. I don’t even think we ever saw her feet, but she wore these vintage Ferragamos, very classic, rich New Yorker, Upper East Side shoes. We decided she grew up on the Upper East Side. It was nice when she and John got into the car, because they looked like such contemporaries. Even though they came from such different worlds, they were on the same side.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York is now playing in theaters across the country. You can watch our Q&A with John Tuturro, Tatiana Maslany and Noah Segan, moderated by Turturro’s Severance co-star Adam Scott here.