Photo: Richard Cartwright/Hulu
If you have watched Hulu’s Maggie for even 15 minutes, you’ll leave with two very definitive takeaways: You definitely donotwant psychic powers, but you definitelydowant access to Maggie’s entire closet. And if you haven’t, put it on your weekend binge list, because it’s not only cute and funny, it’s packed with early-fall outfit inspo.
That jacket was a particular favorite for Rittenhouse and the show’s costume designer, Pamela Withers Chilton. Though it only makes a brief appearance on screen, the two agreed it was “so cool” — topping both of their lists of Maggie’s outfits.
The fringe on the jacket — like the ruffles, stacks of rings and bohemian silhouettes — all nodded to Maggie’s life as a psychic living in L.A., whose visions make her dating life extremely complicated. Rittenhouse says that it was actually more the location, and less the vocation, which helped create Maggie’s look.
Richard Cartwright/Hulu
“Those people are responsible for setting my costume in the morning, which means putting every piece of jewelry that I was wearing in that scene, on a tray. They’re keeping track of all of that, and having to take pictures,” she explains. “The rings were all vaguely similar but not, and I have a weirdly good memory with that stuff, so I’d be like, ‘This ring isn’t right.’ Then, we’d have to try and figure out which ring it was, or things would go missing between set, and my trailer. If I had to change somewhere else, and backings are like… Where’s the backing for this? It’s like when you have five, six earrings in instead of two, and same with rings, it just kind of was like… There are some days where I was just like, I’m so sorry.”
Courtesy Pamela Withers Chilton
Chilton shared some photos of the fittings she did, which demonstrated how much mixing and matching went into getting the right look — and not just in shoes and accessories, but in combining vintage finds from the Fox costume archives with modern items at many price points, from higher-end pieces from Saks and the Real Real to more affordable finds including thrift store belts, Mejuri and BaubleBar jewels and an “amazing” selection of purses and shoes from Off Fifth.
As Rittenhouse recalls, a lot of the outfit magic came just from a lack of time to fuss over the details. “I was working so much that she would be stealing me for fittings. She would get 30 minutes there, 40 minutes here, and we were just ripping through racks of clothing,” she says. “It kind of, in a way, makes you a little more creative because you’re in a rush, you’re like, ‘Let’s just try this. Let’s throw this belt here.’ You end up just having a ball.”
One scene they particularly loved filming was the wedding scene in the final episode, a pivotal moment for most of the characters. Maggie herself wore a vintage 1930s velvet dress, while her friend Louise (Nichole Sakura) donned a sapphire silk number and everyone else in the scene had a very memorable look, which Chilton said came together more easily than you’d guess.
“We just kind of filled the department with beautiful dresses, beautiful things, and everybody tried on a bunch of things, and it all comes together magically. It really does,” Chilton explains. “You have enough choice of pattern on somebody, and plain on somebody else, and you could kind of build around your mains. Their characters were very developed, and they loved them. Everybody felt passionate about putting on those clothes, and I think that really helps too.”
One thing thatwasn’tas easy? Dressing Maggie and her friends for the “visions” without knowing exactly how they’d play out in real life.
“A lot of the mysticism that comes up, I would have to call the writers and be, ‘Wait a minute, is this going to happen? Is this something we’re going to see, or did it already happen? I don’t understand,’ " Chilton recalls, pointing especially to several visions that involved wedding dresses.
Leaving the character (and her style) behind wasn’t so easy for Rittenhouse, who says she was inspired to go a bit less minimalist than she normally would have after playing the role.
“I definitely think it’s allowed me to just think outside the box a little more, and play around more than I would have before,” she says. “Then sometimes I’m like, ‘I feel like I’m dressing like Maggie,’ and I need to go the opposite direction!”
Chilton echoes that the key to pulling off the look (which youwillwant to try after binging the first season) is a willingness to trust the vision (pun intenended).
“That kind of layers, and textures, and taking things on, and taking them off. That’s what makes it feel authentic, I think,” she says. “That’s what anybody could do. You know what I mean? Put it all on, and start taking things off.”
source: people.com
