I found myself sitting in Max Allen and Elliott Adcock’s new North London studio, a space that feels more like a carefully exploded treasure chest than a workspace. Unpacked boxes lined the floor. Shelves overflowed with fabric, fastenings, and half-finished pieces. Everywhere you looked, there was some glimmer of past or future projects in progress. It felt like stepping inside a living archive of ideas.
In a nearby room were a few of the pieces they’d created for Sweetheart, a short film set in the molly houses of 18th-century London. Directed by Luke Wintour and written by Alastair Curtis, the film is part of Sundance 2025’s official selection—a major moment, but not one they’re posturing about. “The whole thing about queer history is that it’s rarely archived,” Allen said. “We had to build the world ourselves—the logic, the visuals, the textures. Because the records that exist were usually written by people judging us.”
Sweetheart isn’t about powdered wigs and velvet breeches. It’s about the underground. The forgotten. The inventive. The working-class queers who gathered in clandestine clubs, who dressed up using whatever they had—stolen beads, old ribbons, found feathers. Allen and Adcock’s costumes lean into that space with grit and grace. “It’s not just a man in a dress,” Adcock told me. “That’s what people expect. But it’s so much more complex than that. These were people using scraps to express desire, status, beauty, community.”
Their dynamic is what makes the work sing. Allen studied at Central Saint Martins; Adcock at London College of Fashion. Allen is the vocal one, the ringmaster. Adcock’s the quieter, more technical counterpart—detail-focused, with a surgical eye for cut and fit. Both, however, are brimming with ideas. “I’m a lot more broad brush strokes, and Elliot has a more finesse-focused skill set,” said Allen. “What’s great about us both doing research is that we often land on the same strong ideas or images—but at the same time, we bring totally different perspectives. It’s that contrast, and the way we link it all together, that leads to something really interesting,” added Adcock.
They’ve been working together for years now, slowly carving out a niche somewhere between costume, fashion, set design, and performance. Past clients include drag queens, artists, department stores, stage productions, and ad campaigns—but Sweetheart is their first fully-fledged narrative film. “We’ve done bits and pieces before—music videos, installations, fashion work,” Adcock said. “But this was different. It was a chance to really build a world.”
And build it they did—drawing from period fashion plates, club kid aesthetics, and the DIY flair of Judy Blame. One key reference was William Hogarth, whose frantic street scenes capture the filth and humor of 18th-century London. “We used to say, imagine Hogarth painting the House of Beauty and Culture,” Allen said. “What would those characters look like? How would they make themselves fabulous with no money?”
Research started with documents but quickly veered into speculation, invention, intuition. “We thought about what jobs people had,” Adcock said. “Who would a working-class queer in 1750 look up to? Maybe the flower seller. The basket lady. Maybe you dress as her at a fancy dress night in a molly house. Maybe your costume is your fantasy, your aspiration.”
One character is a sheep-herder, complete with real fleece, still pungent with lanolin. “It stank,” Allen laughed. “But it was right: Historically accurate and totally queer.” Others include a flower vendor, a print seller, a basket weaver. “It wasn’t drag as we think of it now,” Adcock said. “It was surrealism through poverty.”
They mixed rental costumes with handmade pieces, aged everything by hand. “For one of the dresses, I poured tea over it, left it on the roof for days, dragged it through the garden,” Allen said. “You can’t fake that kind of life.”
The characters built themselves during fittings. “We’d hand someone a string of beads and suddenly they were a bead seller,” Adcock said. “We didn’t just make costumes—we made identities. That’s what queer dressing has always been.”
Their politics are sewn into every seam. “Queer stories are often told by people outside the community,” Allen said. “Glossy, polite versions. This was different. This was ours. We know these people because we are these people.”
Casting helped. “A lot of the cast were from our world,” Allen said. “Friends, queens, club legends. Princess Julia plays the madam of the house. Of course she does. She’s basically been doing that since 1978.” Adcock added, “When you know the performer, you design for the person, not just the character. You understand their body, how they move, how they want to feel. You meet them halfway. You say, let’s make something that feels like you—but 1750.”
There’s one electric blue dress in the film, worn by a character based on Princess Serafina—a real trans sex worker from the era who reportedly walked Covent Garden in full drag. “She had clients,” Allen said. “So she had nicer things. Her dress had better fabric. A better silhouette. She looked right. That’s luxury, that’s class commentary, that’s politics—all in a hemline.”
It’s also about humor, pleasure, and joy. “We wanted it to feel lived-in, a little feral,” Adcock said. “Some dresses rise too high or hang strangely—and that works. That’s what happens when you’re swapping clothes, altering them, adapting. That’s what real queer dressing has always been.” Allen nodded. “We’ve always been seen as underground. Drag-adjacent. Club kids. But this shows we can do that and we can do this. It’s not either or. We’re not changing who we are to go mainstream—the mainstream came to us.”
What they’re really showing is a different model of creative work—fluid, collaborative, and deeply rooted in lived experience. They move between drag clubs and film sets, stage costumes and fashion consultancy, with the same hands-on, materially obsessed approach. It’s not about fitting into neat categories; it’s about building a practice that’s as adaptable as it is uncompromising. Allen summed it up: “We’re not trying to explain ourselves. We’re just making good shit. And letting people figure it out later.”
That, really, is the point. Whether it’s a hand-painted corset, a sheep herder’s headdress made from old bridles, or a tiara pieced together from chandelier offcuts, Allen and Adcock’s work lives in the gaps between eras, genres, and expectations. It’s messy. It’s smart. It’s real. Just like the queers who wore it first.