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I can't believe how long all the research took!
While I was watching Inventing Anna, it was pretty hard to look away — partially because of the drama, but mostly because of all the fabulous outfits.
Anna's sharp sense of fashion was the work of costume designers Lyn Paolo and Laura Frecon.
Nomi Ellenson / WireImage / Maury Phillips / Getty Images / Via Getty
Here are 19 behind-the-scenes facts they've shared about the costumes in Inventing Anna:
1. Shonda Rhimes tapped Lyn Paolo to design for Inventing Anna because she served as the costume director on two other iconic Shondaland productions — Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder.
Daniel Zuchnik / WireImage / Via Getty
2. Laura Frecon is also a Shondaland vet — she was an assistant costume designer on How to Get Away with Murder.
Maury Phillips / Getty Images / Mitch Haaseth/©ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
You might also recognize her work from the Elizabeth Olsen-led series Sorry For Your Loss.
3. The outfits Anna wears in the courtroom scenes are recreations of what Anna Sorokin wore during her trial in real life.
Netflix / TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
"It was exactly what she wore...and she refused to go into court until she had something to wear. I have to respect the chutzpah. It tells you so much about her," Paolo told Shondaland.
4. Before they started choosing her looks for the show, Paolo and Frecon extensively researched everything the real Anna wore in her Instagram posts.
5. The research for her outfits took two months.
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
6. They also researched everything the real Anna's friends wore in her Instagram posts.
@theannadelvey / Via instagram.com
"We’d find out their timeline, go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of what they were wearing at that time. Most of it was from past seasons, obviously, because it was a few years ago,” Frecon told Variety.
7. They also recreated the real Anna's entire Instagram wall.
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8. The designers scoured luxury resale platforms such as Poshmark and Farfetch for the exact outfits, and what they couldn't find, they recreated as closely as possible themselves.
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
9. Sourcing all of Anna's costumes took three months.
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
10. However, rather than recreating the real Anna Sorokin's day-to-day outfits directly, the show presented "an elevated version of her, a Shondaland version of her" to better show her transformation from imposter to socialite.
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Paolo told Shondaland, "I don’t think she was that glamorous in real life...Shonda writes these amazing stories about these amazing women who have an amazing fashion sense...At each moment in the story, each Anna was different, and you can see that in her fashion choices.”
11. In total, they styled more than 3,000 outfits for the character because they "were trying to have her appeal to several worlds."
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Paolo told Shondaland, "If she didn’t know fashion, the ladies who lunch in New York were never going to accept her, and they were the entrance to the husbands, who are the bankers and the lawyers. Then there was the business world, where she would be more suit-y. And then there was the Goop world, where you see her on the yacht.”
12. Julia Garner, who plays Anna, doesn't have pierced ears, so the wardrobe department had to find suitable clip-on earrings.
Netflix
"We had to find a designer that would work for her with a clip, which is pretty tricky," Paolo told Shondaland.
13. For the yacht scene, they had Christian Dior embroider Anna's name on a bag — which was finished surprisingly quickly, considering Italy had just shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Netflix
14. The costume designers bought the Alexander McQueen dress she wears in that scene from the mall then built the rest of the look around it.
Netflix
15. Anna often wore a mix of designer brands in a single outfit because "if you really know what you’re doing with fashion, you mix it...not just wear everything as it was on the runway."
David Giesbrecht / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Paolo told Shondaland, " I love the idea of her being competent enough to be able to put that together.”
16. As the story progresses, every outfit becomes "a tiny bit more fashionista and less conservative."
David Giesbrecht / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
17. The borrowed Theory dress and red Valentino coat Anna wears after losing everything was styled to show "her fall from grace."
Netflix
Frecon told Variety, "She has to wear that outfit for the whole episode throughout the night in the subway; then she goes and cleans herself up in a Starbucks and puts herself back together, and goes and steals a whole bunch of money.”
18. The gold dress that she wears during her fake suicide attempt was chosen because the designers felt "it should be like a very Hollywood feeling at that moment, very 1930s."
Netflix
"It was a juxtaposition of her world falling apart but she had to look fabulous to be found by the staff,” Paolo told Variety.
19. And finally, Nora Radford was actually the most expensive character to dress because of how much "super high-end couture" she wore.
Nicole Rivelli / ©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
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