‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ costume designer Leah Katznelson on the secrets of contemporary costumes [Exclusive Video Interview]
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Costume designer Leah Katznelson has worked on a number of contemporary projects in her acclaimed career, including feature films like “21 Jump Street” and “Sleeping With Other People” and television series such as “Mrs. Fletcher” and last year’s “Fleishman Is in Trouble.” For the FX limited series, an Emmy nominee for Best Limited Series and Best Movie/Limited Supporting Actress for Claire Danes, Katznelson was required to recreate the very recent past, as much of the show’s narrative takes place in the summer of 2016.
“It’s contemporary, but it is a period in and of itself,” Katznelson, an Emmy nominee for “Fleishman,” tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview as part of our Meet the Experts: Costume Designers panel. “We really did spend a lot of energy and time to carefully extract the fashion trends and key clothing shapes and silhouettes that would be particular and specific to 2016 – one of which was the workout wear that the women wear at the 92nd Street Y [in New York]. It’s kind of woven throughout the story, but leisurewear becoming more present in everyday attire was something we kind of infiltrated. There’s a certain wealthy echelon in the upper-middle class that is heavily featured in our project, and so paying attention to what designers were presenting at the moment in 2016 – and making sure that everything felt very current for those characters – helped really land us in that period.”
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Based on the novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and created for television by Brodesser-Akner, “Fleishman Is in Trouble” is a finely observed relationship drama about a couple going through a divorce (Jesse Eisenberg and Danes) and how their friend and acquaintance, Libby (Emmy nominee Lizzy Caplan), processes her own life and marriage in the wake of their split. Libby narrates the show as an almost outside observer, and in the early episodes, Eisenberg’s Toby is painted as the hero – until the struggle faced by Danes’ Rachel comes into full view in the penultimate episode, “Me Time.”
Katznelson is nominated for “Me Time,” like her fellow nominees Brodesser-Akner for writing and Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton for directing. Danes also picked the standout episode as her Emmy submission.
“With Rachel, I leaned really heavily into the idea that there’s a practicality to everything that she does – it’s a very calculated, systematic climb that she has with her career, and her clothes mirrored that structure,” Katznelson says. “There was a real sophisticated elegance for her that felt moneyed, but never shouted ‘brands.’ She knew how to put herself together.”
In terms of her collaboration with Danes, Katznelson said she first connected with the Emmy winner “from a place as mothers.”
“We were really talking about what it was like being a parent, the evolution of your child’s growth, and as they get bigger, you can have more time to lend yourself to be focused on your career. Also, as New Yorkers, how is New York represented in your clothing and your choices?” Katznelson adds. “There’s a lot of walking in New York, so footwear is important. But there are women that wear heels everywhere. That’s their sort of power move. We talked about the idea that Rachel was not coming from affluence, and that money came to her later in life. So the choices she would make – that she was not someone who necessarily innately understood fashion, but understood what was classic money, and that she would mean in that direction in terms of the choices that she would make.”
All episodes of “Fleishman Is in Trouble” are streaming on Hulu.
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