Costume Designer Kelli Jones Talks Straight Outta Compton Style and Outfits in the Movie

Baggy pants, Dickies, and zip-up hoodies aren't exactly trends for the ages, but they are the key elements that capture the iconic style of the legendary L.A. rap group N.W.A in the '90s. Now Straight Outta Compton, the biopic that tells the story behind the group (which if you haven't seen yet, you've definitely heard a ton of buzz about. It raked in a whopping more than $111 million in the box office, domestically), steps back into that period, where the costume choices for the actors who played Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella play a pivotal role in setting the tone of the movie.

Glamour got a chance to chat with costume designer Kelli Jones about her work on the flick and the nuance of the 866 costumes that were used in the film (including what N.W.A has in common with the men on another one of her hit projects, Sons of Anarchy):

Glamour: Before you'd been hired for the film, what did you know about N.W.A.'s style?

Kelli Jones: I knew the look was mainly gangster street style. Dickies, baggy jeans, Nikes, and a lot of black clothing. One of their staples was definitely [Los Angeles] Raiders gear. They never wavered from that solid, strong style.

Glamour: Of all the clothing and accessories we see in the movie, how much was new versus vintage? Where did you find stuff?

KJ: About 50/50. There were so many changes in total, and we had to pull resources from just about everywhere—thrift stores, costume shops, swap meets, alleys in downtown Los Angeles, and army-navy surplus stores. A lot of the jewelry was ordered online.

Glamour: Was there a particular piece that was hard to find?