Totally.
And of course we have a budget we have to respect, which the Birkin Bag didn’t really fit into, if you know what I mean. And my assistant costume designer, Jen, was in contact with Fashionphile. They resell luxury heritage bags. And they were very excited to work with us and lent us the Birkin.
Wow, that’s amazing.
Also, if I might add, in a note of self-referential inspiration there is a small Blair Waldorf Easter egg living in Allyssa. Allyssa in my mind, would’ve been a fan of Gossip Girl. She’s of the age. So she would’ve watched Gossip Girl and she would’ve been a Blair.
Oh my God. She’s wearing a headband in that first scene, isn’t she?
Yep, there you go. See?
Oh my goodness.
It’s subtle, but then once you hear it, you’re like, “Oh.” It was just enough of a nod.
I remember in the opening scene Lily carries a Valentino bag, and my first thought was, “Does she come from money?”
The first time we see her she arrives at her mom’s and the Valentino tote became her hero bag. And she carries a Fendi bag and she’s wearing Louboutins.
I remember thinking at that moment, “How can she afford that as a florist?”
I think she comes from enough money to understand what that all means, but I also think we leaned into the idea that she’s a boss and can take care of herself and can go buy herself a Valentino bag if she wants to.
I was just like, “Should I go become a florist and then I can afford designer bags?” But that makes sense too. I guess she’s been at this for a while.
Exactly. I think it was fun to bring in those elements and have the high-fashion luxury pieces also. And it feels correct. Why wouldn’t she have a Valentino? I think some lux fashion accessories that kind of show that she’s a boss and can afford a Valentino tote if she wants it.
My last question was about young Lily. How did you think about dressing her in relation to her older counterpart?
It actually worked out great, because young Lily was cast a little bit later in the scheme of things. We really had Blake’s looks solidified, so they could pull back from that and be like, “Who would she have been when she was a kid? And how can we tie them together seamlessly?” Obviously the palette helps a lot. The fact that she’s late ’90s, maybe a little early 2000s, and we can lean into this crunchy grunge and [the fact that she’s a] gardener, she is mindful, she’s kind, she has an earthiness to her, she loves Atlas, and is so helpful with Atlas. And there’s a little bit of that Carhartt, again, that Noughties feel, but not quite as elevated or Riot Grrrl as we did with Blake. So it was a direct symbiotic visual, but the grown-up version.
