Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ve probably seen, or at the very least heard of, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Almost everyone I know watched the story of Midge Maisel, the picture perfect housewife-turned-comedienne after her husband leaves her. I first discovered the show during Amazon’s pilot season. I watched it on a whim, fell in love with it and then didn’t hear anything else about it for a while. Finally, the whole first season came out and I was able to see the whole season and enjoy ogling the costumes. Costume designer Donna Zakowska (who design and makes all the lead characters’ costumes from scratch) gets it all right down to the very last detail.
Before I start talking about my favorite outfits from the first two seasons, lets just take a minute to appreciate the visual delight that is Mrs. Maisel. These two images are from two different episodes, in two different seasons. I adore the use of monochrome, taking two hues from the same color family and putting them together. This is a technique I often use in my own costume design, since it helps the audience identify the characters a little bit easier (particularly when your cast is all middle schoolers and it can be more difficult to make age differences seem more obvious).
Not only that, but these are bright, bold, beautiful colors against the well-worn backdrop of the butcher shop, making them pop out even more. These gorgeous colors play into almost every single scene on the show.
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Even when bright/pastel-ly colors are not called for, the attention to detail in the costumes is spectacular.
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I could spend all day discussing every single costume worn by every single character in the show, but that would take quite a long time. Now that season two is out, it seems silly to talk about each episode individually, and so I’m choosing some of my favorite looks from the show (spoiler alert: they’re mostly all Midge’s outfits).
The Black Performance Dress (Season One Finale)
The little black dress that Midge wears in the final scene of the season one finale is everything I ever want to be. Reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn and the epitome of the time period, I adore it. I also love the fact that she dresses up to do stand up comedy, and otherwise relatively uncouth activity at the time.
The Wedding Dress (Premier/Pilot Episode)
From the moment we first see Midge Maisel, she is fabulously dressed. The first scene takes place at her wedding, where she had on a tea length gown with a sheer lace neckline. It’s all around adorable, right down to the little bow on the top of the veil.
The Blue Dance Dress (Catskills Episode)
I immediately fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it. The fact that I later read the everything was blue in this scene to give it a sense of melancholy did not deter that fact one little bit. I already have plans as to how to recreate this: I have the pattern choice all ready to go as soon as I find the perfect fabrics.
The Summer Loungewear (Catskills Episode)
I think I love the Catskills summer wardrobe so much because I am insanely jealous of Rachel Brosnahan’s ease of wearing it! I don’t think I could ever pull off this look, no matter how much I want to! You gotta have nice legs for this to work, and I definitely do not consider my legs my best feature. Even so, it’s often as much fun to look at these styles as it is to wear them!
Abe’s Workout Clothes
I mean, come on… how hilarious does Tony Shaloub look in the workout romper?
Bonus: The Red Dress
This one is a bonus as it’s a dress I recreated for my cousin. Also a fan of the show, she asked me if I would be able to recreate the dress for her wedding rehearsal dinner. We spent a fun afternoon at Mood Fabrics looking for the right color red, and I happened upon the perfect pattern for the project (Butterick Patterns by Gertie 6556) .
I have already plowed through seasons one and two – TWICE – so I am eagerly anticipating season three!
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