Wall Street costume designer understands power dressing

Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick is on the phone from Los Angeles and in the middle of award season.

The Golden Globes were the day before and the Hollywood veteran wants to talk about Ricky Gervais's performance. "He has a particular bent and what amazes me is that people are surprised when they know what they are going to get and they get it," she says. "Did they think he was going to calm down? It amazes me when people say, 'I didn't know he was going to be that cruel.' Well, that's Ricky – he's never changed. It was a riot and the best thing about the awards."

Mirojnick, 61, must be the second-best thing in Hollywood right now. She's a straight talker. She has worked with Michael Douglas on most of his films, including Oliver Stone's Wall Street franchise and Fatal Attraction. She has more than 50 films on her bio, including at least two dozen blockbusters such as Speed, Unfaithful, Face/Off and Chaplin.

Once she's set the Gervais record straight, we're on to Wall Street's sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and, most importantly, how clothes maketh the man.

To research both films, Mirojnick naturally spent time down on New York's Wall Street observing the traders and money-makers. Dress aside, one of the biggest changes since the 1980s is that money and the markets have become entertainment. So as well as walking the corridors of power, Mirojnick this time around would also watch CNBC, the American finance channel.

"Once I was watching one of those CNBC shows and an Australian feed came on from one of your markets and I said, 'There is a universal code – these guys all look the same whether it is Asia, Australia, America or Europe.' They are all a version of the same." Masters of the Universe, as Mirojnick likes to call them. And these masters are all about stealth wealth – quiet luxury that only those in the elite club will notice and be able to measure themselves against.

"No one man wants to look like his brother. If I was to say to you, yes, they wear grey pinstripe suits but there are no two grey pinstripe suits the same. Everyone has their own secret weapon. It gives them that fuel, if you will, to up their own game ever so much," Mirojnick says.

The secret weapon is bespoke suits, shirts and ties made by a top tailor. Mirojnick says in the opening scene, Shia LaBeouf's character Jake Moore is wearing a Hermes sample tie that never went into production.

"I can't tell you how many requests I received for that tie. Seriously, thousands of requests came in asking, 'Who, where, can I?' It all comes down to the close-up. Everybody wants their close-up to be beautiful. As women, we look at our skin every morning and think, 'What can I do to fix this? What neckline should I wear? How does that look? Does that look pretty?' Men have collars and ties and shoulders. It just goes to show that if you show someone something new, even if it is in a category that you are familiar with like a simple tie, [they] want it."