Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn opens in the autumn of 2006, that era of footless tights, boho belts and multicoloured layered tank tops, which is when her satirical romp’s lead, the somewhat naive outsider Oliver (Barry Keoghan), arrives at Oxford University. It’s there that he meets and befriends Felix (Jacob Elordi), a foppish aristocrat dressed in rugby tops and Ralph Lauren jumpers with a requisite eyebrow piercing, and falls in with his crowd of louche, hard-partying freshers which includes his always impeccably attired cousin, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe).

The following summer, Felix invites Oliver to Saltburn, his sprawling family estate, lends him his black tie and introduces him to his eccentric household: his dapper father Sir James (Richard E Grant); his vain and glamorous mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike); his troubled sister Venetia (Alison Oliver); and the delightfully kooky Pamela (Carey Mulligan), a house guest who’s long overstayed her welcome. As Oliver slowly becomes enmeshed in their glittering world, chaos ensues.

“A lot has happened in fashion since that time,” says costume designer Sophie Canale, whom Fennell enlisted to outfit her merry band of players in their off-duty indie sleaze looks as well as their jaw-dropping eveningwear. Emmy nominated for her work on the second season of Bridgerton, Canale says her approach to this slice of recent history was remarkably similar to what she’s done before: “We can put a contemporary fashion spin on it, but at its core, it’s a period drama.” As a result, she threw herself into research, mined the archives of major fashion houses, and even borrowed pieces from Fennell herself.

Below, she talks us through her key Noughties fashion references, creating mood boards from Facebook party photos, and the outlandish looks the ensemble sport for Oliver’s debauched birthday party, which range from showstopping archival Valentino to a suit of armour, fairy wings, and a donkey head.

Saltburn opens in 2006. What were you wearing then?

I was definitely in the short denim skirts, black leggings and the useless white belt that had no intention of holding anything up, but just sat on the waist. I think I was travelling in Australia that year.

It was a dark time.

It really was.

It’s funny because it’s such recent history but the film does feel like a period drama. What did you use as inspiration?

I made mood boards taking lots of images from Facebook. Facebook was so new at that time that everyone was becoming friends with old friends and photos from every night out were being put up for the world to see. So there was a huge breadth of research to be done, just from looking at photos of my friends from their university days in 2006 and 2007 – including those who were at Oxford and Cambridge, and their photos from parties, summer balls and the student union – and even colleagues that I’d worked with within the film industry who I didn’t know at that time. I went back, looked at their pictures and really saw them in a different light [laughs]. Apart from that, I looked at editorials from the time with people like Kate Moss, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, so that I could think about their fashion influence and put bits of them into Venetia and some of the girls at Oxford.