The hustle ’n’ bustles to get it right

As specialty garment makers become rarer, ‘The Gilded Age’ team scrambles to find skills and sources, often looking overseas.

THE FIRST SEASON of the HBO drama “The Gilded Age” re-creates an era of American fashion extravagance and excess that even 140 years later remains unequaled, partly because the skills and materials to make the clothes are becoming increasingly rare. Lead costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone was intent on faithfully reproducing every detail of 1880s New York high-society style, a challenge that required international searches for exceptional materials and craftsmen with archaic skills to make or assemble almost 5,000 costumes for nine episodes starring such heavy hitters as Christine Baranski, Carrie Coon and Cynthia Nixon.

“We have all done big shows. This one was a whole other level big. Just one giant thing after another after another,” Walicka-Maimone said from the production’s Brooklyn studio.

Walicka-Maimone and co-costume designer Patrick Wiley estimate that nearly 600 people contributed to building the wardrobe, including their 65 costume crew members.

There were bustles to be welded, hats molded and fabrics decorated in methods almost lost to history.

The designers relied on workshops from Brooklyn to Budapest, Hungary, including Rome’s Tirelli Costumi, Poland’s Hero Collection, Madrid’s Peris Costumes and London’s Cosprop and Angels Costumes. They found Period Corsets in Seattle, master beader Polly Kinney in New Jersey, historic men’s shirts from Anto Distinctive Shirtmaker in Beverly Hills and bespoke hats from London’s J. Smith Esq.

And they’re only just getting started. In February, HBO announced a second season of the drama from Julian Fellowes, creator of “Downton Abbey.” Walicka-Maimone promises that the next round will be bigger,