'Daisy Jones & The Six' Wardrobe Includes a Sweet Tribute to Elvis Presley, Riley Keough's Grandfather
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Pamela Littky/Prime Video
The costumes in Daisy Jones & The Six, Amazon Video's highly anticipated new show based on the best-selling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, tell a story all on their own.
In the show, starring Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, viewers are taken back to the 1970s in the age of rock and roll as a little band called The Six claws their way up the charts. Through each episode, viewers are transported back in time — through music, through cinematography and, most of all, through clothes.
Costume designer Denise Wingate took great care to ensure that every single wardrobe piece felt authentic to the time period — she never wanted the characters to look like they were playing dress-up. She ended up with thousands of wardrobe pieces sourced from all over the world, including a dress that she bought on Etsy and two coats that paid tribute to rock and roll legend Elvis Presley — Keough's grandfather.
Wingate, who also worked on projects like Cruel Intentions and Wedding Crashers, spent hours curating the wardrobe for the 10-episode series, and one of her primary goals was to make sure the story's avid fanbase would love the result. Here, she walks PEOPLE through some of the show's most iconic looks and how she helped create Daisy Jones.
Some minor spoilers for Daisy Jones & The Six ahead.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
I love the wardrobe in this show so much. I'm very into '70s fashion, so I'm obsessed with everything Daisy wears.
That's what I was hoping for and also to make it a little bit timeless. A lot of stuff she's wearing is from the '20s and '30s, because if you think about it, people from the '70s wore vintage clothes as well. So I spanned every decade and tried to pepper it with everything. Even if there was contemporary stuff that looked period, I was happy to use that. I wanted to feel contemporary. I wanted for people to feel like they could wear it today.
We need to talk about Daisy's collection of coats. She has so many beautiful coats.
I scoured all over. In the last episode, she's wearing this long tapestry coat with a black fur collar. I found that online in France, and I don't like buying stuff online, because I like to look at it and feel it. For that one, though, I was like, 'I've got to get this. It's kind of expensive, but this is such a great piece.'
I had a huge closet, and my office was so full. The bathroom in my office at Paramount was called the Fur Room, because it was a rack of furs and it was the only place we could put it. I tried to use fake fur as much as I could, but a lot of the vintage fur is real. No animals were harmed in the making of this! I want everyone to know that.
I tried for this to be as authentic as possible, and a lot of the research I did was documentary footage and magazines, and I watched movies. I just wanted it to feel real. The producers didn't want it to look like people were dressing up for a '70s dress-up, like it's '70s night at the club. They wanted it to look very authentic and real, and I think we did that.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Tell me a little about the characters' wardrobes and inspiration.
Every character had their own specific style. Camila (Camila Morrone) was early Ali MacGraw and then morphed into Bianca Jagger. Suki [Waterhouse], who plays Karen, was a little bit Patti Smith with some Suzi Quatro and Marc Bolan from T. Rex — because we made her a little bit glam with a lot of velvet — and a little bit of Joan Jett.
Billy (Sam Claflin) was early Bruce Springsteen from the '70s when he was super, super cool. But then he stays the same way because it's his roots. He had the least interesting closet. Everyone else had more.
RELATED: 'Daisy Jones & The Six' TV Show: Everything to Know
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
I love that as Warren (Sebastian Chacon) got more famous, he got more shirtless.
Warren had these fabulous furs. Then shirtless or vests became his thing. A lot of the research I did on drummers showed a lot of vests. I think it was just easier to drum in, so it made sense, and he could rock it.
Everyone's wardrobe evolved as the years went on in the show, but Camila specifically had such a glow-up. That all-white outfit when she comes out of the airport? Iconic.
Well, I'm going to be honest, that was a full ripoff from a photo I saw of Bianca Jagger with Mick Jagger. Both Cami and I were like, 'This is amazing. We have to do this, we have to do this.' And even though it's just wasted on just one shot coming out of the airport, it was still great. But she does have the most character arc.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
There are so many time jumps in the show and I imagine you rarely shot in order. How did you keep track of a wardrobe that huge?
It's hard sometimes if you're shooting out of sequence. We would shoot one block, which was episode 101 to episode 106. And then we'd do 106 and back to 101 and then 102. I had little paper dolls. I would do fitting photos and make paper dolls. I have hundreds of them. Then I had a big board with Velcro strips so I could move them around when they were in a scene together, just to make sure that it all looked good.
There must have been so much to keep track of.
In one episode, I think it might have been episode 103, Camila had 56 changes in just that episode.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Daisy's wedding dress felt so perfect for the Greek location and perfect for her. How did you find that dress?
I found it on Etsy, from a little shop called Elmwood Textiles. I had so many dresses. We made some. I had some crocheted dresses, but then the crocheted dress felt too much like the crocheted dress we use at the end of the show. I wanted something that looked like it could have been made from a tablecloth or a curtain, because they're in Greece. So I found this dress, and then we just altered it a little bit.
Another one of Daisy's pieces that just seems so iconic is the cape she wears in the band's final performance. Talk about dramatic!
It's really dramatic. It was a Halston dress, but in the fitting, Riley was like, 'It needs to be a cape.' So we cut it down the middle, which is one of the scariest things ever to be cutting such an iconic piece of clothing. But we were looking at something in a photograph, in an office with bad lighting. When she got out on stage, she lifted up her hands and the cape blew back, and the light hit the gold lamé and everyone gasped. It was perfect.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Daisy's clothes really tell such a story.
When she starts to go down that dark drug spiral, we made her clothes really dark. She was wearing a lot of black. She was very dark. And then to end with a golden flame — I may be thinking too much into it — but it is perfect. It's the perfect way to end the show.
Did you work with [author] Taylor Jenkins Reid much on creating the wardrobe?
Taylor was great. I didn't get to spend that much time with her, but I met her, and she's so amazing. She's such a great writer. I read the book and I was like, 'I have to do this. I have to do this project.' So the book was where it started.
But speaking of the book, I tried to stay true. There are a lot of fans, and I wanted them to be happy, not disappointed. When Daisy goes to the recording studio to record with The Six for the first time, and she's wearing that man's dress shirt, we had to do that. They would be expecting that. The caftan when she goes in the pool — expecting that. The big hoops — a must.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Where do you think Daisy got her clothes?
Daisy always had money. She came from money. She just wasn't very crafty about it. I think she bought her stuff at thrift stores, or she was on Sunset Boulevard and bought a white marabou feather jacket, which is completely out of character. I just feel like Riley and Daisy, they're these free-spirited people who wear whatever they want whenever they want. And if she wanted to wear a robe out, then she's going to wear a robe, or a man's shirt, or a fur jacket. She was just all over the place. Daisy is eclectic.
She was the hardest to try to find during the documentary portion. I wanted her to still be Daisy, but I think it was better to have more of a blank canvas for her so you don't really know what she's doing. I didn't want it to be so over the top that you were distracted by who she might be then. So it was better to just keep it soft.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
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Like you said, Riley also feels like a free spirit. She embodies this character so much. How was it working with her to bring this character to life?
She was amazing to work with. We had so much time because we shut down a few times over COVID, and we discovered who Daisy was more. Some of the earlier stuff that we tried ended up changing, because it wasn't who Daisy was. Every time Riley did a fitting — and they were usually epic — she was a good sport. We had so many clothes to try on, and it was just a joy. She's such a pleasure. But there is a part of Riley that is Daisy. I think it was perfect casting.
She really feels like she is the character.
She is, and we didn't talk about her family that much or her lineage — I was very respectful of her private life — but I did find this woman named Love Melody who made rock and roll clothes in the '70s. She actually made two jumpsuits for Elvis Presley, so I had her make two beautiful, long coats for the show. One is a denim leather patchwork long coat and the other a beautiful rust leather. She made those. I thought it was nice to bring that back in the fold and have a little bit of that history.
