Let’s be frank: We’re not watching All’s Fair for the plot. We’re watching to obsess over the stunning costumes that deserve their own exhibition at The Met. From sweeping capes to statement hats, money was clearly no object for the Ryan Murphy legal drama, which has delivered Hulu Originals’ biggest scripted series premiere in three years.
Costume designer Paula Bradley, who has worked with Murphy on American Horror Story and Monster: The Ed Gein Story, oversaw the show’s wardrobe, alongside her assistant, Shannon Campbell, and together they created something so magnificent, it kind of doesn’t matter what’s playing out on screen.
“I went to school to study fashion, and not costume designing,” Bradley told The Zoë Report. “My porn is watching people sewing, or the embroidery at Chanel or Dior, Schiaparelli sketches. And so Ryan comes and says, ‘It’s going to be a really high-end fashion show, and it’s going to be contemporary fashion, and this is going to be hard.’ My little heart is like, ‘Yes, yes. Pick me. Pick me.’”
Murphy picked right, because series stars Glenn Close, Kim Kardashian, Niecy Nash-Betts, Sarah Paulson, Teyana Taylor, and Naomi Watts have never looked so incredible, which is saying something for the always-fashion forward stars.
Of course, All’s Fair doesn’t start off so fashion-forward, as the opening scene is set 10 years in the past. Kardashian’s Allura Grant, Watts’s Liberty Ronson, Nash-Bett’s Emerald Greene, Paulson’s Carrington Lane, and Close’s Dina Standish work at a male-dominated law firm, afraid to stand out. The suits are tailored, but drab, indicative of the frustrations the characters face on a daily basis. It isn’t until they open their own powerhouse practice that they’re truly free to shine.