“It was like stepping into the past,” says Laura Hynd says of her first venture on set of the Oscar-nominated film, Phantom Thread. Set in 1950s London, Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie chronicles the life of fashion couturier Reynolds Woodcock [played by Daniel Day Lewis] and the women that surround him. Hynd’s unique access was granted after Sophie de Rakoff, a friend of Anderson’s, asked if she could document the workings of the costume department. “I have to admit, I considered not doing it at first,” says Hynd – although it soon became clear that the job would expand far beyond the initial brief. Her adventure started when she was asked, last-minute, to go to the Cotswolds to photograph Woodcock’s country house. On arrival, she was instantly won over. “It was amazing to be on set,” she says. “The detail and beauty were astonishing. I spent quite a lot of time photographing his atelier, as the cast and crew were shooting elsewhere.”
