Inside Megan Stalter Colorful <i>Too Much</i> Wardrobe
Costume designer Arielle Cooper-Lethem needed to bring color to London. For the new Netflix series Too Much, co-creator Lena Dunham wanted Jessica, the show’s lead character, played by Megan Stalter, to look just a little bit larger-than-life. “The idea was to try and create a world that was very real, but also just a little richer than the world that we live in. Maybe turned up a notch or two,” she says. “We wanted lots of color, lots of texture, but not [for] everything to be new, some things [were] kind of beat-up and worn-in.”
Stalter, for whom Dunham created the part, was a more than willing participant. “She was just so game for everything, which is great. Because some of the looks we had to put her in were quite crazy,” says Cooper-Lethem. Stalter came in with her own favorites, including pieces from Fashion Brand Company.
Cooper-Lethem admits that sizing limitations remained frustratingly common. “It’s still quite difficult to find really fashionable extended sizing clothing, which is a shame,” she says. But the joy that comes from finding the right pieces was something Cooper-Lethem wanted Jessica to convey. “She’s a girl who’s evolving, turning into a grownup. She’s dating someone zesty and adventurous,” Cooper-Lethem says. “I think she really is a character that has a lot of fun finding new clothes, so it was important that she felt like she was looking everywhere.”
The Sailor Dress
On her first night in London, Jessica wears a white, loose fitting, sailor-inspired dress. In a later episode, we see her wear it again with her ex-boyfriend. “That [repetition was] definitely intentional,” says Cooper-Lethem. “That dress actually was supposed to be mistaken for one of her nightgowns.” The number, which is one of the few items that we see Jessica wear in both the New York and London scenes, was from the British brand Foundry Mews.
Jessica loves delicate, flowy nightgowns both at home, where we see her wear them with Felix or in fantasy sequences, and out on the street, where she occasionally wears them like a tunic paired with leggings. “We did end up sourcing a lot of the new ones from this UK-based brand called If Only If. They were wonderful,” Cooper-Lethem says. Many of the others were vintage, including one from the first episode that was intended to have a “pioneer dress” look.
Cooper-Lethem got a custom metallic dress made for an episode where Jessica attends a fancy wedding. It was loosely inspired by the dress that Drew Barrymore’s character wears to the prom in Never Been Kissed. “She was supposed to climb out of a window in it, so we made that custom,” she says.
For an elegant dinner party at her boss’s home, Jessica wore a patterned raincoat with a fur collar that Cooper-Lethem got from the Spanish brand Celia B. “It’s just so perfect for the character. Because she’s a bit whimsical. She’s a dreamer,” she says.
While Jessica and Felix’s wedding might come as a surprise, her bridal outfit makes perfect sense. She’s wearing the humorous Nixon crop top that she inherited from her mother with a tulle skirt, and a large bow. “We collaborated with a designer she had worked with before called Veronica Sheaffer, who’s based out of Chicago, to make the veil and the skirt for her, which was a lot of fun.
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