April 27, 2022 • 26 mins
This week Stacey talks fashion, character arcs, and process with critically acclaimed costume designer, Lyn Paolo.
Much of Anna’s mystique comes from her ability to shapeshift, an ability intimately tied to her apparel. Lyn was in charge of recreating all of Anna’s many outfits for the screen. From baby-doll dress to business-chic to trial style, Lyn traces the evolution of Anna’s looks, and explains the unique challenges behind recreating the appearance of a modern day fashionista who Lyn calls a “chameleon.”
Anna isn’t the only character whose story is reflected in what they wear. The people who get close to Anna in the series are affected by her elevated taste as well. Stacey and Lyn discuss the interaction between character arcs and fashion for Vivian, Rachel, and Alan Reed.
To catch up before you listen, make sure you binge Inventing Anna the series on Netflix now.
Please rate, review, subscribe and share Inventing Anna: The Official Podcast with everyone you know.
Follow Lyn @lynpaolo and host Stacey Wilson Hunt @galinhollywood on Instagram and Twitter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Inventing Anna the Official Podcast is a production of Shonda
Land Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to
Inventing Anna the Official Podcast, your exclusive look inside the
making of the Shonda Land series on Netflix. I'm your
host Stacy Wilson Hunt, and today I'm talking about the
(00:21):
series fabulous Fashion with Emmy winning costume designer Lynn Paulo.
She had the unique challenge of designing all of the
studying outfits we see in the show, including painstaking recreations
of Anna's now infamous trial style looks. In our chat,
Lynne explains why it's often more difficult to design costumes
for series said in modern times, and what is most
(00:41):
thrilling to her about evolving characters through their fashion. Hi. Lynn,
welcome and we're so happy to have you here. Congratulations
on your incredible work in Inventing Anna. How does it
feel to see it come to fruition. I have to say,
it's been such a pleasure to see the reaction of
(01:03):
the audience, and I'm just really excited that the show
is finally out, So thank you. Stacy. You are welcome,
and it's been fun to see people posting and asking
questions and fashion has figured very largely into a lot
of these conversations, and I would love to know from
your perspective what was uniquely challenging about designing costumes for
inventing Anna. Tell me what that process was like as
(01:25):
it compares to the other Shonda Land series you've worked on,
such as Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.
It was such an interesting process because we were trying
to match exactly what Anna had worn in her Instagram
and in the courtroom. Because she was, you know, followed
by so many fashionistas on Insta, we have to take
a big, deep dive into that research. So it was
(01:46):
a heavily research show. From that point of view, all
the other characters all thought that they knew a different
Anna than the Anna the next the person next door
new and so that was also a lot of fun
because then we got to play with the Anna's you know,
there was the business owner and there was the you know,
the party Anna. I love that and yes, that has
been a real highlight. And watching an a shape shift
(02:08):
and with those shape shifting moments, we see her dressing
for all these different personalities. And I'll get back to
that in a moment, but I did want to ask
something I've spoken about with other costume designers, the sort
of misconceptions of dressing contemporary characters. You know, we have
the sense of, oh, it has to be a lavish
costume drama for us to notice costumes, and in a
(02:28):
lot of ways, sometimes dressing contemporary characters can be more challenging.
Tell me how you feel about that. You know, I
think you're so right, Stacey, And and thank you for
understanding that. Because dressing a period drama, which I'm doing
right now again, you do your research and everyone's always
sort of awed by the historical references and the fact
that you got it right and it looks so pretty.
But I feel that dramas that take place within our
(02:51):
timeline are actually harder to complete and to design because
there's much more nuance to it and everyone knows they're
going to expect, whereas on a period piece you can say, oh,
you know, no, this was right, when you know maybe
it was or wasn't. But when it comes to developing
a character in a modern show, the amount of research,
(03:12):
the amount of nuance, the amount of time that you
take to access to rize, I find it to be
harder than doing a period show making something look old
or worn in, or yeah, this character doesn't have a
lot of money, or this character has worn this, you know,
for fifteen twenty years. So, for instance, with Vivian, a
lot of her clothes in the show were aged down
(03:34):
to have that lived in feel because it tells the story.
It tells you right away this lady is wearing lovely clothes,
but they're not new right. And I have to say,
as someone who has been a journalist in New York,
I really appreciated Vivian's worn out boots that she takes
off at Riker's because you really sense that she has
walked the streets asking people questions, done her reporting in
(03:56):
those shoes, and it looked very realistic. Yeah, I wanted
it to feel like she was that all Friday. I
felt like that was a really important story point for Vivian.
And in speaking about the series, a word that you
have used to describe your work as curation, which I like.
It's not just so much you're designing your curating looks.
Tell me what your process was from starting on day one.
So you know, every show is slightly different. But I
(04:19):
really do love a mood board. And I also like
to create a color palette for each character. I'm a
visual learner. I have a really hard time if I
don't have a picture in front of me. I need
to see it. Every single show I'm on, I'm completely
surrounded by mood boards all over the walls and also fabrics, watches,
because even though Inventing Anna was not a bill show,
(04:43):
we didn't create the costumes. We purchased the costumes. I
do like to look at fabrics and look at them
in the different in different light, in different sets, so
that we can get a sense of you know, what's
going to work in this room. And tell me how
you work with Shonda in these moments. You've obviously worked
with on numerous projects. What is her input and how
does that help you do your job? After I think
(05:05):
it's twelve years now we've been working together. We have
a shorthand. Seanda does love to look at the images
from the show and always gets right back to me,
which I know how busy she is, so I truly
appreciate that. I think she understands our timelines and how
difficult it is to turn around a show like Annadelphi
with the volume of clothing we were dealing with. She'll
(05:28):
write back, you know, gorgeous or exactly right, or she'll
put it into the script and she'll write in it's
whatever Lynn says for this scene, which is a real
blessing as a costume designer to have the support of
your writer, producer and um, you know, she'll say she
doesn't like something, or I've gone off track with a character.
(05:49):
But we sort of meshed so well. I don't know
what it is, but we both sort of finish each
other's sentences when it comes to the costume design on
a show. So it's a nice symbiotic relationship. It's very
nice to have that shared sensibility. Yeah, I think so
when I referenced something, I know that she's, you know,
(06:09):
looked at that Runway show or looked at that designer.
So yeah, and she really does. I mean, Shonda understands fashion.
And before we talk about some of the more beautiful
looks in the show, I want to talk about the
prison scenes. Bring me some underwear. Nothing cheaper than Atari,
but Adolphs the pantis aren't disgusting, and I know that
(06:32):
you wanted to create the sense of even in prison,
Anna still wants to look good, right, she still has
her glasses and her uniform looks to be pressed. So
tell me how you balance this idea of you know,
even in prison, Anna wants to be fashionable but also
being realistic as well. Yes, so we we end up
having to make a lot of the uniforms because we
(06:53):
couldn't find them, so they were rebuilt. And what we
did with the other inmates is we sent their cover alls, scrubs,
whatever you want to call them. We had them sandwashed,
and then we aged into them just so they felt
a little limb, you know, a little older and a
little more worn in. And then for Anna, we pressed
her cover rolls every day before she worked and after
(07:15):
lunch too, which Julia really appreciated by the way she
was very crisp walking into the scenes. It was almost
a little too flat in a way, like we pressed
them too much. And again that's another detail that you know,
when we're watching the show there's a scene in a prison,
never once does the viewer think, oh, they've had to
spend hours distressing some of these clothing and pressing that uniform.
(07:37):
But I do think it's those sort of visual cues,
aren't they They're so subliminal the audience understand something, but
they don't know why they understand it, which I think
is part of creating our worlds. No, I agree, and
it really comes through in this series. And I would
love for you to walk me through some of the
creations that were particularly challenging, either to recreate or maybe
(07:58):
you bought something and you a lared it to Julia.
Which piece do you look back on throughout the series
and think, oh, that was a real labor and the
just ended up being a piece of art they're so
proud of, you know. There were several pieces in terms
of matching Anna's real life looks um the Ali Address,
which the real Anna war an awful lot. We ended
(08:19):
up finding three of that dress because we were so
concerned that one it wouldn't arrive to it wasn't going
to be the right dress when it was right, because
of course we were dealing with vendors and people that
we found on Instagram literally and also use clothing stores.
All of that. We kept all three and used all
(08:40):
three eventually, but they were all too large and had
to be cut down, and that was really a math problem.
I have to say, to keep the integrity of that dress,
but cut it down for Julia. The other thing that
we didn't ever find was the black rick Oh and
his leather jacket that the real Anna war in so
many of Instagram posts, so we ended up copying it
(09:02):
and creating it ourselves. Is it often more difficult to
find a garment that's three or four years old as
opposed to something that's twenty five or thirty years old. Yes,
I do think it's more difficult. But the bigger issue
for us in this particular instance is that Anna was
very specific, the real Anna. She tagged everything with who
(09:24):
the designer was, and out of respect to the designers,
we wanted to get it right. So in this particular instance,
it was a tiny bit more tricky because we knew
what it should be, and we could have gotten away
with any little black dress, probably, but we wanted to
be true to the designers. Absolutely. Okay, we're gonna take
(09:47):
a short break, but please stay tuned. Yea, hey, everybody
is Stacy here again. Now back to the interview. I
(10:08):
do want to talk about a couple of the other
characters you've mentioned, Vivian. I'd like to talk a little
bit more about how Anna impacts her style because we
see her, you know, after she has the baby, she's
sort of a little bit more glam she's brushing her hair,
she's a little bit more polished. Tell me about your
thought going into how you depict her evolution. Yeah, that's
a lovely question actually, because there were so many people
in the story who did evolved because of Anna, but
(10:31):
specifically Vivian, we felt like, all of a sudden, she
started to care about fashion more and also care about
how she looked when she met with Anna and how
she presented herself when she went to Germany, and she
became a Vini fashionista. I mean early on in the show,
obviously she's pregnant. In the story, everything was oversized. None
(10:54):
of it was pregnancy clothes. It was all sort of
like Vince, you know, Rag and Bone, those brands, and
we mixed up a lot of textures. And then as
time went on and she became Anna influenced, we started
removing the mixed textures and everything was a little bit
(11:15):
more muted. Her hair was smoother, she seemed a little
bit more put together. What is different my hair? You
like it? I like it, I view like it, Jack,
But we did that with several characters. I think it's
It's actually more telling with Anthony Edwards character that he
goes from being the man in the gray suit too,
(11:37):
wearing flashy or mess ties and pink shirts and lilac
shirts as opposed to just a white or gray shirt
in the beginning. New glasses done progressives that frames her
a little young. You let a hipster help you choose
your glasses. They look good at you. I think everybody
that was around Anna in real life and possibly around
(12:01):
our Anna, they were influenced by her. She was able
to sort of hypnotize people and actually I think bring
joy to people's lives. They followed her and believed her
and became wrapped up in her world of glamour. M
I agree. And then I wanted to talk a little
bit about Rachel and her journey, and Shanda described Rachel
(12:23):
as Anna as mini me, which I thought was funny.
But you do see her kind of morphing into a sidekick.
Tell me about her work style, but then also what
is the style that she has when she's with Anna? Yeah?
I think we you know, we meet her and it's
appray Anna, isn't it. And there's that great scene with
Alexis with Katie Lowe's where she goes. Anna did not
(12:45):
ever pay my way. Anna paid for those shoes and
that Jackie. I was there when she bought those ear
rings the sweater, and I know that there actually said
what everything you have on? So like she she is
an Anna mini me and we do similar thing we
did with Vivian in that regard because she want her
to feel like a young intern at Vanity Fair, not
(13:06):
making a lot, that she did her best, you know,
to look cool to go to work. But then once
she's with Anna, all of a sudden everything becomes elevated.
And then we see her in Morocco and you know
she's in all the boho dresses and the calf tans
and living large on Anna basically, so that theme runs
through the whole show. I mean, you see Anna buying
(13:29):
clothes for Neff. You know she knocks on the window.
And I'm not sure if this was based on the
real Anna, but are Anna was exceptionally generous and did
a lot for her friends and then until she's stole
from them. So right, And I'd love to actually go
back to episode two, which has a lot of wonderful
(13:50):
sound bites about fashion. Anna's friend Val had a great
sound bite where he said Anna belonged, Anna was society,
and then Anna tells Talia during that Cindy Sherman photo exhibit,
this is not dress up, this is bravery. This is
a moment in art. You must be one of Damien's gallerinus.
(14:16):
Do you think I work here? So I'd love for
you to reflect on how Anna saw herself not only
as a fashionista but also as an artist and how
you built that into your work. Those are some of
my favorite scenes, actually, the scene with Talia at that
art gallery, and then the scene with Anthony Edwards when
they're walking through you know the museum. I think it's
the Museum of Modern Art. And we did this sort
(14:38):
of postural echo thing with Anna's clothes in each of
those that it felt similar to the area she was in.
In terms of the scene with Anthony, she was wearing
this Dultch and Gabana suit that had sort of a
Rococo painting silk screened on to the garment, on the
sleeves and on the skirt and on the shoes. So
(15:00):
she's in this really modern building with amazing modern art
and she's standing there wearing a Rococo painting and the
same with Talia is with the scenes with Talia. It
was important to us that both Talia and Anna being
very structural garments in that moment, very architectural in the
(15:22):
same way that in you know, the black and white photo,
which is such a famous photo, there's that sort of
triangle head scarfed, do you know. So we were echoing
off that and you really start to understand more about
how Anna saw herself. I mean the fact that she
considers herself a peer of Cindy Sherman. I know, he's
quite audacious. When we read it, we were all like, what,
(15:45):
But you know, that's the brilliance of Shonda. Do you
know that she would juxtapose this very young woman and
then Cindy Sherman, and we'd have these intense conversations about
art in the middle of a really a story about
someone's dealing money. And outside of the character of Anna,
who was your favorite character to dress and why? Who
(16:07):
was sort of someone who was surprisingly fun to create
a look for it. I love Nef, you know, I
liked all the characters on the show because they were
also different from each other. And I should say I
love Nef because I love the bright colors. I love that.
You know, she lived in Brooklyn, and she was a
little more street and really fun, and she wasn't pretending
(16:27):
to be anybody. She was just who she was. But
then I also loved the scribe Arians really all their
different textures and you know, getting to fit a dress
Anna Davia again, it was such a joy. And of course,
Jeff I don't know, something about their quirkiness appealed to
me and I really I really loved their fittings. And
(16:50):
I appreciated Terry Kenny's character, how he was kind of
holding on to these last vestiges of coolness with his
concert t shirts and his cool hats. And Terry was
a it because you know, all of those sort of
floral I was a rock star once upon a time.
Most we kept saying, we're gonna dress you like mid
eighties rock star, still dressing the same way, and you
(17:13):
know what a trooper he went for it. Okay, please
stand by for these quick messages from our sponsors. Okay,
(17:34):
are you still there? Awesome, Let's get right back into it.
Walk me through how you planned the trial style sequences,
the finale, and all the chaos that ensued in the
courtroom with Anna's costume delays, well, I'll call him. This
is so fucked. We've got thirty minutes before this judge.
(17:59):
Loser are fucking ship on me. Better get shopping, want
me to pick up the course. I'll figure it out.
I gotta shift. Tell me about creating what really was
not only huge moment in legal history, but this huge
fashion moment, and how the two intersected in this finale.
Literally between Instagram and what Shanda wrote on the page,
it was all there. So for us, it was more
(18:20):
what is the nuance of the scene. What is Anna
feeling in this moment? Should we use, you know, the
Zara blouse or do we use the helmet lane jacket
that she had her supposed stylists got to get for her.
We gathered together all the pieces that she actually wore,
and then totally went through each scene. Was she said,
(18:42):
was she confrontational? Was she and then dressed according to
sort of the essence of how Anna was in that
particular scene. It's interesting when I rewatched the final episode,
I was struck by how youthful and I was choosing
to look in the courtroom. She didn't go for more
of a tailored suit look she's more going for this
almost like teenager baby doll dress. How do you feel
(19:05):
that she was hoping to represent herself for the jury,
because it's an odd choice for someone who had tried
to pass herself off as a sophisticated, elegant woman. Yeah.
I think I was sort of underwhelmed by Anna's fashion personally, um,
and I mean that with no disrespect, but particularly in
the trial sequences. The little black ribbon around her neck,
which was a favorite thing of hers, the baby doll dresses,
(19:28):
which sort of hawking back to her early days, you know.
And there's a character act she says, when I first
met her, she wore baby doll dresses. We couldn't take
her seriously to give her a loan. And then all
of a sudden, she's wearing you know, really high and suiting.
So it's that it's almost like she was regressing in
that moment, And I think we tried to bookend that
by highlighting the baby doll dresses, the earlier reference of
(19:50):
the very young Anna who's just starting out, and then
ending on that was sort of our way of book
ending the character. I do think too, the there might
have been some artifice in it for the real Anna
just to look as sweet as possible. You don't want
to dress up and be too you know, glossy in
a courtroom like that. You want to be sort of
(20:13):
every woman. I imagine she put a lot of thought
into what she was wearing. That seems to be her thing. Yes, yes,
she puts a lot of thought into everything. I think
I would love for you to weigh on something that
I find fascinating from earlier in this series, when Val
is speaking to Vivian about Anna, and he was talking
about how her taste was impeccable, but he distinguished his
(20:34):
taste from fashion. Anna was understanding elegant, a liar Balenciaga.
Do you or she knew all the way things to
say and do? How do you feel about that? And
how do you feel anna perceived taste versus fashion? I
think Anna contrived everything, and everything was about manipulation, so
(20:59):
that in the moments where she was really caughting Vale,
although Val didn't think she was, because she wanted to
be in that fashion world. She I mentioned it to Shonda,
is that she became the Hitchcock blonde, you know, the
ice queen blonde with all these icy colors and off
(21:22):
the shoulder dresses in you know, baby sort of icy
pinks and icy blues, because she was unattainable. That was
the approach we had with the scenes with Val, that
this woman is elegant and classy and doesn't follow fashion.
I think he says that, like, she didn't just wear
(21:43):
what everybody else wore. She had an innate style of
her own, because I think Val has an innate style
of his own, and he always looks so sort of
carry grant, elegant, and so I think, you know, she
saw that, and she wanted that, and I think everything
she wore had a purpose. And I personally think that
(22:06):
you shouldn't follow fashion, that you should know what works
well on your body, what looks good on you, and
then you take the pieces of fashion that you love
that are also part of what will look good on you,
and that's how you should dress. Um. But I think
Anna was a different sort of chameleon. I think she
she looked as at fashion, and she looked at clothing,
(22:29):
and she looked at design, and she looked at art,
and they were all tools she could use to get
to an end. And that's interesting you talk about that
sort of kim Novak peroxide blonde, Tippy Hedren unattainable blonde
look that she was going for. But then she chooses
to soften it and she darkens her hair to more
of a red because she realized that that unapproachable iciness
(22:51):
wasn't really servicing her. And you know that was again Shanda,
there was just specific beats and as you can imagine filming,
you know, for ten months, I think it was tracking
that for the poor head bomb and you know, and
then for us, it changed everything about what Julia could wear.
(23:12):
It changed the color palette. You know, when you're an
ice blonde, there are certain colors that are gonna work well,
and then when you're a redhead, it changes. So as
I keep saying, like there was so many not even
just about all the hair. Anna was a chameleon and
she used every tool she could, and she had to
become whatever was acceptable or whomever was acceptable in a
(23:35):
given situation. So she could go from the Boho art
world to shopping at Bergdorf's and fit in in all
those places absolutely. And my final question for you is
thinking about how you felt about Anna and the character
of Anna when you started the project and now thinking
about her. After the series has been revealed to the
(23:55):
world and you've had more time to think about her,
How have your feelings changed about this person, both the
real life person and the person we see depicted in
the series. You know, Stacy, I have to tell you,
I'm still very confused. I think a lot of us are.
By the way, Yeah, we talked about her a lot
still at work, Laura Freakon and I and literally I
(24:15):
was talking to another actress today who had just seen
the show and said, oh my god, I watched the show.
It was amazing. I loved it. And she said to me,
what do you think of Anna? And I go, I'm
just so intrigued. I still kind of fathom how she
did what she did. I'm also very conflicted. As a woman.
I feel like, well, you know, yeah, she's still and
(24:37):
that is wrong. But was it so bad? Did that
happen to because she was a woman? I mean I
am a mess a at Anna Delbe and there were
a lot of us who would just had a really
hard time trying to figure her out. And we still haven't.
And I think that's what's so interesting about the show,
because you don't really know in the end I don't
(24:58):
think anybody knows. I'm like she even sure if the
real Anna knows well. And on that note to really
truly incredible work, and you're such an amazingly talented artist.
But the clothing really was a highlight of the series.
So I just want to say thank you so much
for putting so many hours of your craft and expertise
into this. Thank you, Stacy. It was a joy. And
I have to share that to my crew and to
(25:19):
Laura Freathon, who co designed it was me that it
was I mean, look, there was a gift from Shanda.
I'm always grateful when Seana picks up the phone and
calls me, thank you so much for listening. That's it
for today. Next week, I'll chat with Katie Lows, who
plays Rachel Williams, Anna's friend of me who famously lost
(25:43):
sixty dollars in Morocco when she naively offered to foot
the bill for their lavish vacation. Katie is not only
a Shonda Lane staple, she's also a podcast host herself
and an absolute gem. What is the takeaway of this story?
Don't trust people, No, I'm getting Oh, don't be so jaded, Katie,
You cannot trust anybody. If you're enjoying this show, subscribe,
(26:07):
share with your friends, rate, and leave us a review.
All of that good stuff. And if you haven't finished
Shonda Lands Inventing Anna on Netflix, please go do that.
We really don't want to spoil it for you. Inventing
Anna the Official Podcast is executive produced by Sandy Bailey,
Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and
(26:29):
editor is Nicholas Harder, and the show is produced and
hosted by me Stacy Wilson Hunt. Inventing Anna the Official
Podcast is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(26:50):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Inventing Anna the Official Podcast is a production of Shonda
Land Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to
Inventing Anna the Official Podcast, your exclusive look inside the
making of the Shonda Land series on Netflix. I'm your
host Stacy Wilson Hunt, and today I'm talking about the
(00:21):
series fabulous Fashion with Emmy winning costume designer Lynn Paulo.
She had the unique challenge of designing all of the
studying outfits we see in the show, including painstaking recreations
of Anna's now infamous trial style looks. In our chat,
Lynne explains why it's often more difficult to design costumes
for series said in modern times, and what is most
(00:41):
thrilling to her about evolving characters through their fashion. Hi. Lynn,
welcome and we're so happy to have you here. Congratulations
on your incredible work in Inventing Anna. How does it
feel to see it come to fruition. I have to say,
it's been such a pleasure to see the reaction of
(01:03):
the audience, and I'm just really excited that the show
is finally out, So thank you. Stacy. You are welcome,
and it's been fun to see people posting and asking
questions and fashion has figured very largely into a lot
of these conversations, and I would love to know from
your perspective what was uniquely challenging about designing costumes for
inventing Anna. Tell me what that process was like as
(01:25):
it compares to the other Shonda Land series you've worked on,
such as Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.
It was such an interesting process because we were trying
to match exactly what Anna had worn in her Instagram
and in the courtroom. Because she was, you know, followed
by so many fashionistas on Insta, we have to take
a big, deep dive into that research. So it was
(01:46):
a heavily research show. From that point of view, all
the other characters all thought that they knew a different
Anna than the Anna the next the person next door
new and so that was also a lot of fun
because then we got to play with the Anna's you know,
there was the business owner and there was the you know,
the party Anna. I love that and yes, that has
been a real highlight. And watching an a shape shift
(02:08):
and with those shape shifting moments, we see her dressing
for all these different personalities. And I'll get back to
that in a moment, but I did want to ask
something I've spoken about with other costume designers, the sort
of misconceptions of dressing contemporary characters. You know, we have
the sense of, oh, it has to be a lavish
costume drama for us to notice costumes, and in a
(02:28):
lot of ways, sometimes dressing contemporary characters can be more challenging.
Tell me how you feel about that. You know, I
think you're so right, Stacey, And and thank you for
understanding that. Because dressing a period drama, which I'm doing
right now again, you do your research and everyone's always
sort of awed by the historical references and the fact
that you got it right and it looks so pretty.
But I feel that dramas that take place within our
(02:51):
timeline are actually harder to complete and to design because
there's much more nuance to it and everyone knows they're
going to expect, whereas on a period piece you can say, oh,
you know, no, this was right, when you know maybe
it was or wasn't. But when it comes to developing
a character in a modern show, the amount of research,
(03:12):
the amount of nuance, the amount of time that you
take to access to rize, I find it to be
harder than doing a period show making something look old
or worn in, or yeah, this character doesn't have a
lot of money, or this character has worn this, you know,
for fifteen twenty years. So, for instance, with Vivian, a
lot of her clothes in the show were aged down
(03:34):
to have that lived in feel because it tells the story.
It tells you right away this lady is wearing lovely clothes,
but they're not new right. And I have to say,
as someone who has been a journalist in New York,
I really appreciated Vivian's worn out boots that she takes
off at Riker's because you really sense that she has
walked the streets asking people questions, done her reporting in
(03:56):
those shoes, and it looked very realistic. Yeah, I wanted
it to feel like she was that all Friday. I
felt like that was a really important story point for Vivian.
And in speaking about the series, a word that you
have used to describe your work as curation, which I like.
It's not just so much you're designing your curating looks.
Tell me what your process was from starting on day one.
So you know, every show is slightly different. But I
(04:19):
really do love a mood board. And I also like
to create a color palette for each character. I'm a
visual learner. I have a really hard time if I
don't have a picture in front of me. I need
to see it. Every single show I'm on, I'm completely
surrounded by mood boards all over the walls and also fabrics, watches,
because even though Inventing Anna was not a bill show,
(04:43):
we didn't create the costumes. We purchased the costumes. I
do like to look at fabrics and look at them
in the different in different light, in different sets, so
that we can get a sense of you know, what's
going to work in this room. And tell me how
you work with Shonda in these moments. You've obviously worked
with on numerous projects. What is her input and how
does that help you do your job? After I think
(05:05):
it's twelve years now we've been working together. We have
a shorthand. Seanda does love to look at the images
from the show and always gets right back to me,
which I know how busy she is, so I truly
appreciate that. I think she understands our timelines and how
difficult it is to turn around a show like Annadelphi
with the volume of clothing we were dealing with. She'll
(05:28):
write back, you know, gorgeous or exactly right, or she'll
put it into the script and she'll write in it's
whatever Lynn says for this scene, which is a real
blessing as a costume designer to have the support of
your writer, producer and um, you know, she'll say she
doesn't like something, or I've gone off track with a character.
(05:49):
But we sort of meshed so well. I don't know
what it is, but we both sort of finish each
other's sentences when it comes to the costume design on
a show. So it's a nice symbiotic relationship. It's very
nice to have that shared sensibility. Yeah, I think so
when I referenced something, I know that she's, you know,
(06:09):
looked at that Runway show or looked at that designer.
So yeah, and she really does. I mean, Shonda understands fashion.
And before we talk about some of the more beautiful
looks in the show, I want to talk about the
prison scenes. Bring me some underwear. Nothing cheaper than Atari,
but Adolphs the pantis aren't disgusting, and I know that
(06:32):
you wanted to create the sense of even in prison,
Anna still wants to look good, right, she still has
her glasses and her uniform looks to be pressed. So
tell me how you balance this idea of you know,
even in prison, Anna wants to be fashionable but also
being realistic as well. Yes, so we we end up
having to make a lot of the uniforms because we
(06:53):
couldn't find them, so they were rebuilt. And what we
did with the other inmates is we sent their cover alls, scrubs,
whatever you want to call them. We had them sandwashed,
and then we aged into them just so they felt
a little limb, you know, a little older and a
little more worn in. And then for Anna, we pressed
her cover rolls every day before she worked and after
(07:15):
lunch too, which Julia really appreciated by the way she
was very crisp walking into the scenes. It was almost
a little too flat in a way, like we pressed
them too much. And again that's another detail that you know,
when we're watching the show there's a scene in a prison,
never once does the viewer think, oh, they've had to
spend hours distressing some of these clothing and pressing that uniform.
(07:37):
But I do think it's those sort of visual cues,
aren't they They're so subliminal the audience understand something, but
they don't know why they understand it, which I think
is part of creating our worlds. No, I agree, and
it really comes through in this series. And I would
love for you to walk me through some of the
creations that were particularly challenging, either to recreate or maybe
(07:58):
you bought something and you a lared it to Julia.
Which piece do you look back on throughout the series
and think, oh, that was a real labor and the
just ended up being a piece of art they're so
proud of, you know. There were several pieces in terms
of matching Anna's real life looks um the Ali Address,
which the real Anna war an awful lot. We ended
(08:19):
up finding three of that dress because we were so
concerned that one it wouldn't arrive to it wasn't going
to be the right dress when it was right, because
of course we were dealing with vendors and people that
we found on Instagram literally and also use clothing stores.
All of that. We kept all three and used all
(08:40):
three eventually, but they were all too large and had
to be cut down, and that was really a math problem.
I have to say, to keep the integrity of that dress,
but cut it down for Julia. The other thing that
we didn't ever find was the black rick Oh and
his leather jacket that the real Anna war in so
many of Instagram posts, so we ended up copying it
(09:02):
and creating it ourselves. Is it often more difficult to
find a garment that's three or four years old as
opposed to something that's twenty five or thirty years old. Yes,
I do think it's more difficult. But the bigger issue
for us in this particular instance is that Anna was
very specific, the real Anna. She tagged everything with who
(09:24):
the designer was, and out of respect to the designers,
we wanted to get it right. So in this particular instance,
it was a tiny bit more tricky because we knew
what it should be, and we could have gotten away
with any little black dress, probably, but we wanted to
be true to the designers. Absolutely. Okay, we're gonna take
(09:47):
a short break, but please stay tuned. Yea, hey, everybody
is Stacy here again. Now back to the interview. I
(10:08):
do want to talk about a couple of the other
characters you've mentioned, Vivian. I'd like to talk a little
bit more about how Anna impacts her style because we
see her, you know, after she has the baby, she's
sort of a little bit more glam she's brushing her hair,
she's a little bit more polished. Tell me about your
thought going into how you depict her evolution. Yeah, that's
a lovely question actually, because there were so many people
in the story who did evolved because of Anna, but
(10:31):
specifically Vivian, we felt like, all of a sudden, she
started to care about fashion more and also care about
how she looked when she met with Anna and how
she presented herself when she went to Germany, and she
became a Vini fashionista. I mean early on in the show,
obviously she's pregnant. In the story, everything was oversized. None
(10:54):
of it was pregnancy clothes. It was all sort of
like Vince, you know, Rag and Bone, those brands, and
we mixed up a lot of textures. And then as
time went on and she became Anna influenced, we started
removing the mixed textures and everything was a little bit
(11:15):
more muted. Her hair was smoother, she seemed a little
bit more put together. What is different my hair? You
like it? I like it, I view like it, Jack,
But we did that with several characters. I think it's
It's actually more telling with Anthony Edwards character that he
goes from being the man in the gray suit too,
(11:37):
wearing flashy or mess ties and pink shirts and lilac
shirts as opposed to just a white or gray shirt
in the beginning. New glasses done progressives that frames her
a little young. You let a hipster help you choose
your glasses. They look good at you. I think everybody
that was around Anna in real life and possibly around
(12:01):
our Anna, they were influenced by her. She was able
to sort of hypnotize people and actually I think bring
joy to people's lives. They followed her and believed her
and became wrapped up in her world of glamour. M
I agree. And then I wanted to talk a little
bit about Rachel and her journey, and Shanda described Rachel
(12:23):
as Anna as mini me, which I thought was funny.
But you do see her kind of morphing into a sidekick.
Tell me about her work style, but then also what
is the style that she has when she's with Anna? Yeah?
I think we you know, we meet her and it's
appray Anna, isn't it. And there's that great scene with
Alexis with Katie Lowe's where she goes. Anna did not
(12:45):
ever pay my way. Anna paid for those shoes and
that Jackie. I was there when she bought those ear
rings the sweater, and I know that there actually said
what everything you have on? So like she she is
an Anna mini me and we do similar thing we
did with Vivian in that regard because she want her
to feel like a young intern at Vanity Fair, not
(13:06):
making a lot, that she did her best, you know,
to look cool to go to work. But then once
she's with Anna, all of a sudden everything becomes elevated.
And then we see her in Morocco and you know
she's in all the boho dresses and the calf tans
and living large on Anna basically, so that theme runs
through the whole show. I mean, you see Anna buying
(13:29):
clothes for Neff. You know she knocks on the window.
And I'm not sure if this was based on the
real Anna, but are Anna was exceptionally generous and did
a lot for her friends and then until she's stole
from them. So right, And I'd love to actually go
back to episode two, which has a lot of wonderful
(13:50):
sound bites about fashion. Anna's friend Val had a great
sound bite where he said Anna belonged, Anna was society,
and then Anna tells Talia during that Cindy Sherman photo exhibit,
this is not dress up, this is bravery. This is
a moment in art. You must be one of Damien's gallerinus.
(14:16):
Do you think I work here? So I'd love for
you to reflect on how Anna saw herself not only
as a fashionista but also as an artist and how
you built that into your work. Those are some of
my favorite scenes, actually, the scene with Talia at that
art gallery, and then the scene with Anthony Edwards when
they're walking through you know the museum. I think it's
the Museum of Modern Art. And we did this sort
(14:38):
of postural echo thing with Anna's clothes in each of
those that it felt similar to the area she was in.
In terms of the scene with Anthony, she was wearing
this Dultch and Gabana suit that had sort of a
Rococo painting silk screened on to the garment, on the
sleeves and on the skirt and on the shoes. So
(15:00):
she's in this really modern building with amazing modern art
and she's standing there wearing a Rococo painting and the
same with Talia is with the scenes with Talia. It
was important to us that both Talia and Anna being
very structural garments in that moment, very architectural in the
(15:22):
same way that in you know, the black and white photo,
which is such a famous photo, there's that sort of
triangle head scarfed, do you know. So we were echoing
off that and you really start to understand more about
how Anna saw herself. I mean the fact that she
considers herself a peer of Cindy Sherman. I know, he's
quite audacious. When we read it, we were all like, what,
(15:45):
But you know, that's the brilliance of Shonda. Do you
know that she would juxtapose this very young woman and
then Cindy Sherman, and we'd have these intense conversations about
art in the middle of a really a story about
someone's dealing money. And outside of the character of Anna,
who was your favorite character to dress and why? Who
(16:07):
was sort of someone who was surprisingly fun to create
a look for it. I love Nef, you know, I
liked all the characters on the show because they were
also different from each other. And I should say I
love Nef because I love the bright colors. I love that.
You know, she lived in Brooklyn, and she was a
little more street and really fun, and she wasn't pretending
(16:27):
to be anybody. She was just who she was. But
then I also loved the scribe Arians really all their
different textures and you know, getting to fit a dress
Anna Davia again, it was such a joy. And of course,
Jeff I don't know, something about their quirkiness appealed to
me and I really I really loved their fittings. And
(16:50):
I appreciated Terry Kenny's character, how he was kind of
holding on to these last vestiges of coolness with his
concert t shirts and his cool hats. And Terry was
a it because you know, all of those sort of
floral I was a rock star once upon a time.
Most we kept saying, we're gonna dress you like mid
eighties rock star, still dressing the same way, and you
(17:13):
know what a trooper he went for it. Okay, please
stand by for these quick messages from our sponsors. Okay,
(17:34):
are you still there? Awesome, Let's get right back into it.
Walk me through how you planned the trial style sequences,
the finale, and all the chaos that ensued in the
courtroom with Anna's costume delays, well, I'll call him. This
is so fucked. We've got thirty minutes before this judge.
(17:59):
Loser are fucking ship on me. Better get shopping, want
me to pick up the course. I'll figure it out.
I gotta shift. Tell me about creating what really was
not only huge moment in legal history, but this huge
fashion moment, and how the two intersected in this finale.
Literally between Instagram and what Shanda wrote on the page,
it was all there. So for us, it was more
(18:20):
what is the nuance of the scene. What is Anna
feeling in this moment? Should we use, you know, the
Zara blouse or do we use the helmet lane jacket
that she had her supposed stylists got to get for her.
We gathered together all the pieces that she actually wore,
and then totally went through each scene. Was she said,
(18:42):
was she confrontational? Was she and then dressed according to
sort of the essence of how Anna was in that
particular scene. It's interesting when I rewatched the final episode,
I was struck by how youthful and I was choosing
to look in the courtroom. She didn't go for more
of a tailored suit look she's more going for this
almost like teenager baby doll dress. How do you feel
(19:05):
that she was hoping to represent herself for the jury,
because it's an odd choice for someone who had tried
to pass herself off as a sophisticated, elegant woman. Yeah.
I think I was sort of underwhelmed by Anna's fashion personally, um,
and I mean that with no disrespect, but particularly in
the trial sequences. The little black ribbon around her neck,
which was a favorite thing of hers, the baby doll dresses,
(19:28):
which sort of hawking back to her early days, you know.
And there's a character act she says, when I first
met her, she wore baby doll dresses. We couldn't take
her seriously to give her a loan. And then all
of a sudden, she's wearing you know, really high and suiting.
So it's that it's almost like she was regressing in
that moment, And I think we tried to bookend that
by highlighting the baby doll dresses, the earlier reference of
(19:50):
the very young Anna who's just starting out, and then
ending on that was sort of our way of book
ending the character. I do think too, the there might
have been some artifice in it for the real Anna
just to look as sweet as possible. You don't want
to dress up and be too you know, glossy in
a courtroom like that. You want to be sort of
(20:13):
every woman. I imagine she put a lot of thought
into what she was wearing. That seems to be her thing. Yes, yes,
she puts a lot of thought into everything. I think
I would love for you to weigh on something that
I find fascinating from earlier in this series, when Val
is speaking to Vivian about Anna, and he was talking
about how her taste was impeccable, but he distinguished his
(20:34):
taste from fashion. Anna was understanding elegant, a liar Balenciaga.
Do you or she knew all the way things to
say and do? How do you feel about that? And
how do you feel anna perceived taste versus fashion? I
think Anna contrived everything, and everything was about manipulation, so
(20:59):
that in the moments where she was really caughting Vale,
although Val didn't think she was, because she wanted to
be in that fashion world. She I mentioned it to Shonda,
is that she became the Hitchcock blonde, you know, the
ice queen blonde with all these icy colors and off
(21:22):
the shoulder dresses in you know, baby sort of icy
pinks and icy blues, because she was unattainable. That was
the approach we had with the scenes with Val, that
this woman is elegant and classy and doesn't follow fashion.
I think he says that, like, she didn't just wear
(21:43):
what everybody else wore. She had an innate style of
her own, because I think Val has an innate style
of his own, and he always looks so sort of
carry grant, elegant, and so I think, you know, she
saw that, and she wanted that, and I think everything
she wore had a purpose. And I personally think that
(22:06):
you shouldn't follow fashion, that you should know what works
well on your body, what looks good on you, and
then you take the pieces of fashion that you love
that are also part of what will look good on you,
and that's how you should dress. Um. But I think
Anna was a different sort of chameleon. I think she
she looked as at fashion, and she looked at clothing,
(22:29):
and she looked at design, and she looked at art,
and they were all tools she could use to get
to an end. And that's interesting you talk about that
sort of kim Novak peroxide blonde, Tippy Hedren unattainable blonde
look that she was going for. But then she chooses
to soften it and she darkens her hair to more
of a red because she realized that that unapproachable iciness
(22:51):
wasn't really servicing her. And you know that was again Shanda,
there was just specific beats and as you can imagine filming,
you know, for ten months, I think it was tracking
that for the poor head bomb and you know, and
then for us, it changed everything about what Julia could wear.
(23:12):
It changed the color palette. You know, when you're an
ice blonde, there are certain colors that are gonna work well,
and then when you're a redhead, it changes. So as
I keep saying, like there was so many not even
just about all the hair. Anna was a chameleon and
she used every tool she could, and she had to
become whatever was acceptable or whomever was acceptable in a
(23:35):
given situation. So she could go from the Boho art
world to shopping at Bergdorf's and fit in in all
those places absolutely. And my final question for you is
thinking about how you felt about Anna and the character
of Anna when you started the project and now thinking
about her. After the series has been revealed to the
(23:55):
world and you've had more time to think about her,
How have your feelings changed about this person, both the
real life person and the person we see depicted in
the series. You know, Stacy, I have to tell you,
I'm still very confused. I think a lot of us are.
By the way, Yeah, we talked about her a lot
still at work, Laura Freakon and I and literally I
(24:15):
was talking to another actress today who had just seen
the show and said, oh my god, I watched the show.
It was amazing. I loved it. And she said to me,
what do you think of Anna? And I go, I'm
just so intrigued. I still kind of fathom how she
did what she did. I'm also very conflicted. As a woman.
I feel like, well, you know, yeah, she's still and
(24:37):
that is wrong. But was it so bad? Did that
happen to because she was a woman? I mean I
am a mess a at Anna Delbe and there were
a lot of us who would just had a really
hard time trying to figure her out. And we still haven't.
And I think that's what's so interesting about the show,
because you don't really know in the end I don't
(24:58):
think anybody knows. I'm like she even sure if the
real Anna knows well. And on that note to really
truly incredible work, and you're such an amazingly talented artist.
But the clothing really was a highlight of the series.
So I just want to say thank you so much
for putting so many hours of your craft and expertise
into this. Thank you, Stacy. It was a joy. And
I have to share that to my crew and to
(25:19):
Laura Freathon, who co designed it was me that it
was I mean, look, there was a gift from Shanda.
I'm always grateful when Seana picks up the phone and
calls me, thank you so much for listening. That's it
for today. Next week, I'll chat with Katie Lows, who
plays Rachel Williams, Anna's friend of me who famously lost
(25:43):
sixty dollars in Morocco when she naively offered to foot
the bill for their lavish vacation. Katie is not only
a Shonda Lane staple, she's also a podcast host herself
and an absolute gem. What is the takeaway of this story?
Don't trust people, No, I'm getting Oh, don't be so jaded, Katie,
You cannot trust anybody. If you're enjoying this show, subscribe,
(26:07):
share with your friends, rate, and leave us a review.
All of that good stuff. And if you haven't finished
Shonda Lands Inventing Anna on Netflix, please go do that.
We really don't want to spoil it for you. Inventing
Anna the Official Podcast is executive produced by Sandy Bailey,
Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and
(26:29):
editor is Nicholas Harder, and the show is produced and
hosted by me Stacy Wilson Hunt. Inventing Anna the Official
Podcast is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(26:50):
you listen to your favorite shows.
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