Main Character Energy: Costuming Yourself

I recently watched season 2 of The White Lotus. I haven’t seen season 1, and I’m not sure I particularly cared enough about this one to catch up, but, being who I am, any boredom I felt at the sluggish and predictable (until the last episode, of course) plot was made up for by fascination with how each character was dressed.

Naturally, Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya was my favorite, with the way she stumbled through the resort in her tacky and costume-y idea of glamour. But, the most fascinating, by far, was her existentially lost assistant, Portia—played by Haley Lu Richardson.

Portia’s styling garnered quite a bit of conversation online, as well, with people wondering if she was purposely dressed so…bad. To that, I say, there’s no need to wonder: Everything in costuming—at least on a show with such budget and esteem as the 10-time-Emmy-winning White Lotus— is on purpose.

It should surprise no one that I have a background in costume design and that that background has informed my work as a stylist. While costuming and styling are both, at their core, about dressing people, they’re also both about telling a story that exists within certain confines: be it a script or a person’s own personal wardrobe and the limitations thereof.

Basically, we’re all characters on life’s stage and we should all be dressing ourselves as such, with the same intention Alex Bovaird had in styling Portia, or Patricia Field had in dressing Carrie Bradshaw, or Mandi Line (who I’m mentioning here because I had the pleasure of meeting her recently and who served as the inspiration for this article) had in dressing those Pretty Little Liars.

Every outfit is a chance to tell a story, and it all starts with what you want to communicate.