When ‘Shrinking’ Is Great: The Clothes In Apple TV+s Latest Hit – Forbes

If you’ve been watching the Apple TV+ show Shrinking, thinking that it felt similar in tone to something you couldn’t quite place, you are not alone. The ‘Feel Good’ watch, which Shrinking absolutely belongs to, is an important part of our streaming culture. We all know that content is everywhere, and there is more of it than any one person could ever hope to watch. Between the constant monthly onslaught of new things to add to our lists, with the current (and abiding) state of both domestic and international news, sometimes fortitude is not enough to get a person through. Between 2020-2023, this need was filled by Ted Lasso, which was produced by showrunner Bill Lawrence and writer/star Brett Goldstein. Luckily for all of us, Lawrence and Goldstein launched their next project before the final season of the beloved Lasso aired.

I had a million questions about Shrinking, many of which were related to the truly incredible costumes worn by comedian and actress Jessica Williams, Gaby in the show. Luckily, Allyson Fanger, costume designer of the series, was willing to indulge me. In case you do not already know, Shrinking, Season Two of which is now available on Apple TV+, is about therapist Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel), who is trying to piece his life back together after the death of his wife.

“It was like it was really important to her to be a therapist for the next generation,” Fanger explained when I asked about the character. “The kind of therapist who LGBT+ kids could come in and talk to and feel comfortable.” Gaby feels exactly like that. With all the bright colors (and often contrasting patterns) she wears, it would be impossible for Gaby to be confused with someone who isn’t welcoming and loving. The actress, Jessica Williams, who you probably recognize from The Daily Show, is tall, 6’ according to the internet. “ It was so fun, she can carry so much stature-wise, and she’s got all this great confidence. In the second season, Gaby comes out of the workplace a little more, but it’s story dependent. It took like in the beginning. It took a good three fittings, I think, we had to find the right silhouettes to make sure she looked professional.”

How exactly does a costume designer know where to start? “All good characters come from well written characters,” Fanger told me. “Characters come from well written, well fleshed out characters. When we started with the first season, Jimmy was in a dark place, and it was their workplace.” Gaby, Fanger explained, “was always meant to be the light in the office, which is why we went with the vibrant colors for her and the pattern mixing, which I love to do.”

Gaby is a co-worker of the show’s main character, Jimmy, who along with his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell), is still recovering from the death of his wife, and Alice’s mother, Tia. We see her occasionally in the show, in brief flashbacks, but the story opened after her passing. Jimmy and Gaby work with/for Dr. Paul Rhoades, mentor to both, played by Harrison Ford in his first major television role. I tried very hard not to think of him as Dr. Harrison Ford. I was not successful.

“Paul is very in control, a commanding steady presence,” Fanger said. “His clothes are meticulously cared for. He does have some wild moments, like when he eats the gummies, because Harrison’s always game to make it crazy, if the scene calls for it. He’s not afraid to do something wild. Matter of fact, he’s often the one who comes up with crazy ideas.” Where does she look for his costumes? “Harrison wears a lot of Paul Smith and Sid Mashburn.”

Costumes are important to any production, for the actors and for the eventual audience. Good costumes are filled with information. In Shrinking, basically anything anyone wears will provide information about who a character is. “When I’m conceiving of a character,” Fanger told me, “it’s all illustrated by what they’re wearing. The viewer, that’s the first information they get on a character. A person, by their nature, will also bring components of their character to the character. When they walk in the room, I don’t always know how far I’m going to go. Who needs more help? Who do I need to pull back on? We always find it in the room. It always takes a couple of times.”

Jimmy is at rock bottom when we meet him, literally the very first scene of the very first episode of the very first season shows us this, makes it very clear. “He was in a bad way,” Fanger explained, “this man’s life had fallen apart right. On my original mood board for my first meeting for the show, I put in that iconic photo of Ben Affleck, when he’s just standing by that building. I thought, this is the point where this man is right now.” She’s absolutely correct. Breathing looks labor intensive for Jimmy, when we meet him. He’s disheveled, his clothes look odd, they don’t seem to fit right.

“That was a really big thing for the second season,” Fanger told me. “That he’s starting to get it together. There are overarching themes to each season; the first season is grief, the second season becomes about forgiveness. and the third season will be about moving on.” I am so glad that we will be getting a Season Three. “He’s a mess in the first season. As he moves through the second season, you might see some changes happen, but he doesn’t really get to forgiveness until quite late. In the third season I think I’ll give him a little more sharpness.”

One of the challenges of costuming a production with so many characters is assisting the audience in keeping everyone straight. Each role needs to have a distinct look, but when multiple characters appear together on screen it cannot be discordant. “All their palettes are quite different,” Fanger explained. They have to be very different and at odds with each other as therapists, because that is the story. So, Jimmy is kind of this wild mess.

His palette is very olive/tan/textural, like tweed and corduroy. Harrison Ford’s is just the best cashmere and the finest fabrics and pressed and button. You know the colors are perfect. He has a very different vibe. But that’s part of the story, too. Part of my job is helping to tell the story of the characters, helping viewers to experience it more fully and become attached to the characters.”

One of my personal favorite characters is Liz, Jimmy and Alice’s interfering neighbor. Mother to all, if she likes you enough, Liz, Christa Miller who you’ll remember from The Drew Carey Show, will give you a rock. “I love Christa Miller,” Fanger said. “She’s just so dry and funny. I really based her off of Los Angeles moms, like Brentwood moms. Even though the show takes place in Pasadena, she’s a Brentwood mom. Kind of kooky, she’s got good style, she’s got a little money. She likes to mix it up. A thing I really like about this show is that it’s in LA, because I love to use LA brands. I like to find the LA brands that are very LA specific. She wears Jennifer Meyer jewelry, Jen Meyer jewelry exclusively. Because that’s a very LA Lady Brand, a Brentwood Mom brand. She’s got one storefront. It’s in Brentwood.”

Liz is a great view into Fanger’s process. “It’s very deliberate,” she told me. “It’s like, what do I see these women wearing? Where does she shop? Where’s she going? She got really casual at the beginning of the season because she was working on the food truck, but she likes a jacket. Those flannels she has, those are Greg Lauren, he is a friend of Christa’s. I really age them a lot, and they get that really good, you know softness to them. We used a lot of his pieces in the food truck scenes for her, and also that jacket she wore on the date with Macis also Greg Lauren. We went to his sample sale before the season started, and we bought a bunch of stuff and I think we used almost all of it.”

Liz is married to Derek, Ted McGinley (Jefferson D’Arcy), who Fanger perfectly described to me as “everyone’s favorite dad. He’s the best. I have to say, this cast is amazing. Like everybody is. Everybody is just happy to be there, you know. No one’s bringing bad energy in there. It’s good, really nice.” Because of Derek, we meet Derek 2, Damon Wayans Jr., who is in possession of an unfair quantity of personal style. Fanger made a beautiful meal of it. “I love that whole Derek 2 storyline, it is so funny to me. He had to look like Derek, but obviously not be Derek, but be like ‘a Derek.’ So we tried to mimic some of the ‘Derek’ silhouettes. Some things we put on regular Derek just weren’t right for Derek 2, so we found it in other ways.”

One crucial issue in Season Two was how Brett Goldstein’s character, Louis Winston, would be introduced, and how his character would be dressed. “It was a big thing to make sure that he didn’t look like his character in Ted Lasso,” Fanger explained. “Bill Lawrence, our showrunner, was like, ‘this is so important, so important,’ that he doesn’t wear dark colors. Roy Kent wears all the dark colors and he has that beard, that’s why he shaved. He kind of had to be a depressed guy, so he had to look a little shitty, like he’s kind of lost his will.” With both Jimmy and Louis, Fanger did a lot of aging of clothes to make it clear that garments had been worn nearly to death without the owner noticing. It would have been easy for Goldstein to be forever typecast as Roy Kent, but the actor has so much range. Maybe this role will allow him to move away from the direct association with a major career success.

Now that Season Two has ended, of course I had to ask what was coming next. “I think I start back prepping for Season Three in a couple of weeks now,” Fanger told me. “I haven’t seen the scripts yet. But I do know that the overarching theme was going to be moving on. So we are going to see Jimmy come out of his, you know. He’s just let go of the anger and find the forgiveness. and it was such a big, important thing for the parallel of love.”

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