Costume designer explains Scandal star’s style
Main character’s costumes have changed for Season 3 to reflect dramatic evolution
NEW YORK — Notice anything different about Olivia Pope’s look this season on Scandal?
It’s still full of the very best designer labels, and her suits — a good chunk of her wardrobe — blend an aggressive edge with a sexy shape while staying professional.
But in Season 3, there’s a hint more colour, and many of the silhouettes are asym- metrical, showing her just a bit off-kilter. “Hopefully viewers will see the emotional reason to make these changes, and we’ve amped up the fashion, too, because we needed it for the story,” explains costume designer Lyn Paolo.
Kerry Washington, a fashion It Girl in her own right, plays Olivia, described by ABC as a “professional fixer.”
The show has to buy the clothes and keep them because Paolo is unsure if cre- ator Shonda Rhimes will want to revisit a particular scene in a flashback. As a result, Olivia’s closet is big.
Paolo shops from the runway, at department stores, from windows and online. When she was on vacation this past summer on a cruise, she fell in love with a fellow passenger’s outfit. She told the passenger the clothing tag was showing (it wasn’t) so she could “fix it” and steal a peek at the label.
Is there anything in that bulging Scandal closet that Paolo would like to borrow? “I’m a uniform girl. I dislike dressing myself. It’s all black and white in my closet.”
She is, after all, dressing up to 80 people per episode. “We should call it ‘Scramble’ not ‘Scandal.’ ”
Olivia was easy, though. Paolo had her look down before she knew Washington would be the star — and maybe even before Scandal was pitched as a pilot.
Paolo, whose credits also include The West Wing and ER, says she keeps dozens of files on imaginary characters.
One was “an AfricanAmerican woman in light clothes and a custom Louise Green hat,” she said. “I had an image of Diana Ross. I would have liked a bigger brim on the hat, but our sets are too dark and you couldn’t see Kerry’s face.”
Paolo also works on Showtime’s Shameless, and her problem there is that the characters are supposed to have a gritty appearance, but Emmy Rossum, the most fashiony of the cast, is a little model-like, she says. “You’ll look at her and say, ‘She looks too good in that!’ ”
There are other stars that Paolo would like the opportunity to dress, including Patricia Heaton and Julianna Margulies, whom she calls “so elegant and stylish.”
“I have characters and their wardrobes ready to go. I just need a show for them.”