Karyn Wagner, The Notebook costume designer, is speaking out after Vanessa Bryant revealed that her late husband Kobe Bryant had gifted her with a dress Wagner created for the 2004 romance flick. After Bryant revealed the gift while taking the podium at Monday’s celebration of life service for Kobe and Gianna Bryant, Wagner took to Instagram to react, saying that she was “honored” to have had a small part in the couple’s love story.
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“[Vanessa Bryant] my whole heart goes out to you for your loss,” Wagner wrote, sharing a screenshot of Bryant’s 2013 post showcasing the gift. “I am so honored that my art has given you joy. May you heal in kindness and support from your friends and family surrounded warmth and blessings.”
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Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter following Bryant’s eulogy, Wagner had revealed that after finishing the film, she had “put the dress in a box and it went into storage,” and soon after, as Bryant revealed in her speech, it ended up in Kobe’s hands and later his wife’s.
“He gifted me the actual notebook and the blue dress Rachel McAdams wore in The Notebook movie. When I asked him why he chose the blue dress [from the movie], he said it was because it’s the scene when Allie comes back to Noah,” she told the 20,000 people in attendance. “We had hoped to grow old together like [in] the movie. We really had an amazing love story.”
“We loved each other with our whole beings, two perfectly imperfect people making a beautiful family and raising our sweet and amazing girls,” she added.
The speech, Wagner said, reduced her to tears.
“I started bawling,” Wagner told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m still drying the tears off my face. What a beautiful eulogy. I’m so honored that I was able to contribute in some small way to the history of this amazing man.”
Bryant had first revealed that her husband had gifted her the dress, which had been worn by Rachel McAdams’ Allie when she reunited with Noah years after their relationship came to an end, the platform heels from the ensemble, and a prop notebook in a Valentine’s Day 2013 Instagram post, just after she and Kobe had reunited after a separation and divorce proceedings filed in 2011. At the time, she wrote that it was one of her “favorite Valentine’s day gifts from my husband.”
