There’s a scene in the pilot episode of Amazon’s sleeper hit, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, in which our heroine is seen dashing around the Upper West Side running quintessential housewife errands. But rather than paying attention to her amusing exchange with her Kosher butcher, in which she brags about getting the Rabbi to be guest of honour at her Yom Kippur dinner, I couldn’t stop staring at her coat. A saccharine shade of bubblegum-pink, the cocoon style reminded me of that iconic mid-century Balenciaga silhouette, and combined with the cerise-pink elbow-length gloves and beret hat immediately signalled to me that one of the things that is so marvellous about Mrs Maisel is her wardrobe.
Set in 1950s Manhattan, the latest show from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman Palladino follows the emancipation of Midge Maisel, as she confronts life on her own after her husband leaves her for his secretary. A pro at playing the part of ‘perfect’ wife, the Midge we meet at the beginning of the pilot is the kind of woman who gets up before her husband to put her makeup on, but by its end she’s drunk and flashing her breasts on stage at a club downtown. It’s during this scene that she inadvertently discovers her talent for comedy – something that’s been obvious to the viewer since the opening scenes depicting her darkly humorous wedding speech (she tells everyone at her Jewish wedding that there’s shrimp in the eggrolls – Jewish people don’t eat shellfish).
Costume designer Donna Zakowska perfectly captures this dichotomy – from princess-like Upper West Side wife with her sweetheart-necklines, nipped in waists and elbow-length gloves, to beatnik downtown comic wearing cropped trousers, polonecks and headscarves – with both aesthetics often necessary within the same episode as Midge juggles both lives. As Zakowska explains, the different wardrobes were entirely necessary considering the social landscape of New York at the time: ‘This was a time where the difference between living uptown and downtown was very distinct and there wasn’t a great deal of traffic between them. Midge couldn’t really look the way she looks at a butcher’s shop in the Upper West Side when she goes to a comedy club downtown.’
Creating the two distinctive looks required extensive research, with Zakowska turning mainly to issues of fashion magazines from the time to find inspiration (the aforementioned pink coat was based on one from a spread in French Vogue). She also looked to her own family of native New Yorkers, raiding the wardrobes of her mother and grandmother and studying photographs of them from the 1950s, working with her team to make the majority of the costumes from scratch.
Another source of inspiration was Audrey Hepburn’s film roles of the period, specifically Funny Face, which directly influenced Midge’s downtown look. ‘What is so wonderful about Hepburn’s clothes is that they are of the period but timeless,’ she explains. ‘There’s a simple elegance and a spirit that is captured in all of the clothing, and that’s what I was trying to do with Midge’s wardrobe, too. I didn’t want to just dress Midge in period clothes, I wanted to capture the spirit of the character.’
The timelessness of Midge’s clothing is certainly a large part of their appeal, whether it’s the coral, high-waist, belted shorts she wears to test out her new jokes, or every single coat she’s seen in when dashing around uptown, because if there’s one thing this woman knows, it’s outerwear. Pink-concoction aside, there’s a brown faux-fur flapper’s moll coat, a seafoam green wool number and a magenta dress coat, and that’s only half of it. The common denominator here? The Pantone colour palate.
‘The coats are like these coloured envelopes that are a really powerful way of communicating a scene,’ Zakowska explains. ‘It was extremely important that her clothing captured that spirit of fighting against all odds and wanting to conquer whatever the problems were in her life. It was always a dilemma: ‘what coat should Midge wear today?’’
As well as conveying Midge’s constantly buoyant mood, her wardrobe also punctuates the comedy of the show, with one particularly good example being the exercise scene in episode one, which shows Midge and her best friend working out in a ridiculous kit of high-necked top and high-waist shorts. The clothes also serve to bring about the finale’s grand realisation, when Midge stops playing the role of downtown beatnik and instead does her comedy act wearing a Breakfast at Tiffany’s-esque black dress and pearls. Perhaps it's this focus on character and plot development told through clothing that makes Mrs Maisel feel different to a show like Mad Men, set in the same period and with an equally celebrated wardrobe, but which never translated into real life because it felt much more style over substance, clothing-wise.
Now working on season two, what have we got to look forward to in terms of Midge’s wardrobe next? ‘As we go into spring in the second series, we’ll be dealing with lightness and transparency, rather than the vivid opaqueness of winter,’ she says. ‘But don’t worry, there will be more coats!’ Thank goodness for that.
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is available on Prime Video now
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