Florence Pugh returned to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Yelena Belova in the recent Disney Plus series Hawkeye, where she was renowned for her amazing outfits and iconic style. The costume designer behind the show, Michael Crow, recently spoke to Insider and said one outfit Yelena wore in episode five had references to Black Widow.
One instantly iconic scene shows Yelena and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) bonding over a pot of mac and cheese. In this scene, Yelena is wearing a “weird” coat bearing some enamel pins, and it’s these pins that hold the reference, as Crow revealed.
“It was another carryover from her costume from the end of Black Widow that she had lots of enamel pins. One of them is sort of a finger gun. That’s also something that Florence really liked because it’s something that Yelena does in Black Widow a couple of times.”
Crow said the pins were also a subtle reference for those working on the series, because the name of the production company was also Finger Guns Productions. “[Pugh] thought it was a cool reference to Yelena and I thought it was a fun nod to our production company.”
Another pin that referenced Black Widow was a spider, which obviously represented the from where the assassins got their name.
“I will say it was a struggle to find those individual pieces,” Crow said. “The coat she wears in the scene with Kate in the loft, we were both in love with because it was so weird. I found two of them online and they were the last two in the world so it was just meant to be.”
Anyone who has seen Hawkeye knows how memorable Yelena’s style is throughout the series, but fans would have to have a very good eye to have spotted this reference without Crow revealing it.