As with any great style-driven show, the costumes in I Love LA began with character. “I started by breaking down their backgrounds,” she says. “As a costume designer, I really love giving characters their own autonomy through clothing. It’s a defining thing a viewer can grasp with just an image.”
For Maia, an aspiring and insecure talent manager and LA transplant played by Sennott, Flannery looked to ’90s actresses – Claire Danes, Julia Stiles, Christina Ricci – and blended catalog nostalgia and a contemporary PR-girl vibe. Think: new-gen brands like Gimaguas and Fanci Club, mixed with adorable pieces you’d find in a downtown thrift store and give a silent scream over: a D&G floral bustier dress, a flirty Miss Sixty denim mini, a Jean Paul Gaultier sailor strip crop top combo. Then, some Dilara Findikoglu. (Feel the fantasy!)
Tallulah, Maia’s chaotic best friend, played by Marty Supreme’s Odessa A’zion, references “a lot of 90s riot grrrl vibes. A bit of Tank Girl meets Amyl and the Sniffers,” Flannery says. An unpolished it-girl influencer who relies on gifted clothes and vintage steals: a beat up (and…actually stolen) Balenciaga City bag, an IG grid-worthy Rick Owens leather dress moment (for a funeral). Alani (True Whittaker) exudes the confidence of a nepo baby born to shop: head-to-toe Miu Miu, rare Gaultier.
Los Angeles is both the setting and woven into the wardrobe. Quite literally at times. “The palette and aesthetic spoke to the climate of LA. It’s a city where you can wear a big ass jacket at night, and a barely-there crop top during the day,” Flannery says – so there was a lot to play with. She sourced almost entirely within the city, digging through Eastside resale haunts like Bearded Beagle and Worship. Many of the pieces will feel familiar to locals, with IYKYK references: a baseball cap from the zany and iconic Los Angeles institution Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, merch from East Hollywood strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room, a “CYNIC” graphic tee from LA indie shop Fashion Brand Company. Tallulah wears a yellow Wi Spa t-shirt, which is provided to patrons of the iconic Downtown Korean spa while they use services, subtly implying that she stole it.
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