There is so much beauty running alongside the ugliness of the actions of men in Apple TV’s Imperfect Women. That beauty can be found in the lifelong friendships found between the characters played by Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara–it does take something special to make something last for so long, after all. But there is so much to admire in the costuming by Tiffany Hasbourne. Not only was she tasked to weave together three distinct identities through clothing, but she also had to consider how each of these women were perceived in each other’s eyes. It’s an accomplishment that should not go unnoticed this Emmy season.
The friend group of Eleanor, Mary, and Nancy (Washington, Moss, and Mara, respectively) is rocked when Nancy’s body is discovered but the answers do not come easy–not in the investigation and not when these women look inward at their own lives. Can a life full of so much history survive such trauma? As you watch the mystery unfold, you might notice a running visual theme of flowers and gold in all of the costuming for these friends. The flowers are delicate and vibrant and the gold could be seen as something strong and something unattainable. Hasbourne knew that she had to create specific identities for these women but those lines could be blurred together.
“It was imperative that I had three very distinct, different styles for each of these women,” Hasbourne says, plainly. “With Kerry for Eleanor, it was bold but dark. With Nancy, it was softer with pastels and clean silhouettes, and, for Mary, it was florals. I wanted to make sure that it was floral and motherly. It was important to me, though, that I intertwined them with each each other, at some point with some sort of floral or gold accessory. Or you might notice that, in the beginning, everything with Mary was an oversized jacket with a long dress. Something to help her feel and be functional. As she starts to dig through this journey or her [own] understanding and being honest about what she’s been hiding from them about Howard and what he’s done to treat her, you see this liberation of her in white. I almost wanted to signify that she has been unburdened. In the finale, she’s then in this strong green.”
Every time Eleanor steps on screen, she is confidently wearing a different color or trying our a new silhouette. In one early scene she wears a pink top with exaggerated flowers with knots on the khaki skirt where. When Mary and Eleanor go to speak to someone who may or may not have been Nancy’s lover, she sports a yellow and black stripped top, and all of Eleanor’s jewelry is something you’d want to add to your own personal collection. There is something so exciting about seeing a fictional character feel so liberated in how she presents herself, but Hasbourne points so something even deeper. Imperfect Women‘s episodes are divided into chapters that focus primarily on each of these people as they deal with Nancy’s death, and Hasbourne knew that she had to take the opportunity to play with our perspectives. Do we see each other in the same way that we see ourselves?
“If you notice in episode one, you’re getting the story from Eleanor’s point of view, and she’s very much covered with jackets,” she explains. “She’s dressed to show respect and to show how she is about business. When we get to episodes from the perspective of Elisabeth and Kate’s characters, though, it’s how those women see her, and that’s why it’s different. It’s what Eleanor is trying to portray versus how Nancy or Mary see her and what’s happening in her day. In Eleanor’s episodes, she’s mostly coming from the office and going to work or doing interviews or receiving awards and how to juggle and function during her daily life. She just happens to have to show up at a police station afterwards. When we see her in Nancy’s episodes, she’s more relaxed and casual, because she’s not around Robert. It’s about how she shows up around her friends or for Mary. Eleanor doesn’t have to be in business attire to mean business. She can be comfortable in a long sleeve shirt and pants with sneakers.
I couldn’t let the changes be distracting, though. Even when you see Howard in Mary and Eleanor’s perspective, it starts off very every day since Nancy wouldn’t be impressed with him. As their affair starts, though, he starts to dress a little nicer, and he’s starting to kind of show the appeal and the manipulation of how much of a chameleon he is. He’s able to basically make a woman forget how manipulative he can be with his approach to show how he’s able to trick Nancy or how he was able to get a TA in bed with him even though he’s already married. When we see Robert later in the season, he’s more of an emotional mess, but we are seeing him from Mary or Nancy’s point of view. When we see him through Eleanor’s eyes, he’s always very put together and statuesque.”
Hasbourne uses color so beautifully in the closet for Nancy, and the pinks honor Nancy as a former dancer but also reinforce the delicacy often associated with the artform. When she begins working on the costumes of a new piece, she wears some different colors, and you can feel how she wants to make an impression behind-the-scenes in this change of pace. My favorite outfit of hers comes in episode two where she covers the dress in a clean, white sweater with large gold buttons only joined at the top.
“The pastels had to be so specific for her,” “Hasbourne says. “I wanted to show the influence of ballet into her daily like how the sweaters, jackets or blazers were used to show how they used them as armor. These women can go into worlds where they don’t feel safe, and those covers could almost be like a security blanket for them. That dress is a Balmain white sweater and uses an Hermes scarf as a belt around the waist, and I think it’s very much an example of her hiding her scars to show how she can be this perfect wife with these perfect Pantones and perfect silhouettes. When she leaves the ballet and chooses the hoodie, you can see how much she’s struggling with that. You hear her curse for the first time and be aggressive, and I think a hoodie over a Versace dress was the first time that we saw her be who she truly needed to be without being so guarded.”
Any time Joel Kinnaman’s Robert came on screen, I kept thinking about how perfect he looked, and that falls directly in line with how he and Nancy lived their lives. The main difference between husband and wife, though, is that he has had the means to dress like this for his entire life where Nancy has had to learn how to create something for herself.
“Almost everything in Robert’s closet was custom-made,” she admits. “In terms of his suits, his tuxedos, his dress shirts–all custom. I sat on the floor with my suit maker and matched suits to shorts, because we thought that would be something that Nancy would do to help curate their lives. If you see them on screen together, they almost look as if they were in sync because of the kind of life that they led. They lived for those parties. The same goes for Donovan’s closet. If you come to town to get your sister out of a scandal and you’re also a ladies man, we had to think about what that looks like. what makes a man appealing to where women want to flock to them. What does that say about you?”
Of all the things that I would’ve wanted for my own closet, it would have to be Robert’s graphic robe when he and Eleanor spend some much-needed time alone, and I would definitely love to add Howard’s eyeglasses to my collection of spec. Hasbourne actually got a special gift when Imperfect wrapped, but she would snatch a few more, if she could.
“There were so many things,” she says, after a moment. “I loved Nancy’s Dior bag–her tiny, gold bag that was exclusive to Dubai–and Eleanor’s Chanel bag. Coach ended up gifting me and Kerry her Kisslock bag. For a memory keepsake, I would have had Lizzie take the pendant chain that had all of her kids’ initials on it.”
Imperfect Women is streaming on Apple TV.
