Published in Catching Flights | Written by Caviar & Co.
Tucked behind the grand façade of Selfridges London, in the raw, atmospheric space of the Old Selfridges Hotel, something remarkable is stirring. From October 17th to November 9th, Netflix and Selfridges have opened the doors to Frankenstein: Crafting a Tale Eternal — a free, immersive exhibition accompanying Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming reimagining of Frankenstein. It’s not a simple behind-the-scenes. It’s an atmospheric archive — dark, cinematic, and reverent. This is not a display. It’s a dissection.
From Ink to Flesh
You enter through the shadow. Candlelit walls. Scribbled anatomy. Stained textures. It’s quiet, theatrical, and strangely intimate — like being invited into the process of a dream. Each corridor opens into fragments of the film’s design: hand-illustrated storyboards, sculpted prosthetics, annotated script pages, and curated relics that stretch beyond the movie, including first-edition volumes of Mary Shelley’s original novel.
There are rooms lined with costumes, garments suspended mid-movement, showing the evolution from sketch to stitch. Threads of Victoriana twisted with del Toro’s signature elegance — tactile, strange, romantic. A full-body cast of Jacob Elordi stands upright, immense and unsettling, as though he might exhale at any moment. And then there’s the moment where everything goes quiet.
The Room You Can’t Film
A curtained entrance leads to a small, cinema-like space — dim, reverent, intimate. A single glowing screen dominates the room, surrounded by a few stools, though most of us stood. The air felt weightier here. Onscreen, snippets from the upcoming film — unreleased footage, scoring moments, and behind-the-scenes production — played in near-silence, only broken by the sound design of the film itself.
No phones. No cameras. Just the screen. Spoilers are protected here by design. You don’t walk out with images — you walk out with atmosphere. Nearby, laid out like specimens in a dream lab, are full-scale anatomical sculptures of Frankenstein’s monster: torsos opened, faces mid-transformation, skin half-built. Del Toro’s take isn’t theatrical — it’s intimate, physical. You feel the craftsmanship in every line.
“Most of the film was illustrated before it ever touched set,” a team member explained.
You believe it. This isn’t just production. It’s hand-built myth.
Details Worth Catching
- Frankenstein: Crafting a Tale Eternal
- October 17 – November 9
- Old Selfridges Hotel, London (attached to Selfridges London)
- Free to attend (book in advance via the Selfridges website)
- Film-inspired merchandise available in the Menswear department, including pieces inspired by the film's darker themes and production design
The Fashion of Monsters
There’s a significant presence of costume and textile design in the space — a quiet highlight for anyone who sees storytelling in seams. If that thread calls to you, stay tuned for Dressing the Monster in The Wardrobe, where we dive deeper into the fashion, silhouette, and visual language that shaped del Toro’s newest creation.
Behind the Stitching & Smoke
The experience begins in silence — a long, darkened entrance hall, dimly lit with flickering candlelight and illustrated fragments. Scene concepts crawl up the walls like old scientific diagrams. The first room is layered with sound: soft murmurs, scraping tools, and score fragments that stretch like breath. Every corner of the exhibition brings another world to life. Visitors wander through glass boxes holding hand-sculpted prosthetics, original set pieces, annotated scripts, and curated artefacts — some of them reaching back to Mary Shelley herself, with early edition volumes and pages that bear the weight of literary legacy.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein isn't here to explain itself. It invites you to look closely. To stand in front of Jacob Elordi’s full-body creature mould — tall, grotesque, and strangely elegant — or trace the embroidery on Mia Goth’s costume hem, now suspended like a relic. There’s even a wall that displays each cast member and the role they play, grounding the myth back in its modern retelling.
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Explore More from Our World
Curious about the aesthetic legacy of Shelley’s monster? Step behind the seams in Dressing the Monster: Fashion and Costume Behind Victor Frankenstein — an upcoming feature in The Wardrobe, exploring silhouette, symbolism, and the visual identity of gothic myth.
