The style secrets of Joanna Lumley and Michelle Keegan’s Fool Me Once wardrobes
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It may have scored a 41 per cent low on Rotten Tomatoes, but Fool Me Once is scoring highly in the ratings. Released on New Year’s Day, the nail-biting thriller based on Harlan Coben’s book of the same name swiftly became the most-watched TV series on Netflix (worldwide, as well as in the UK), as viewers binged on its addictive - albeit far-fetched - plot twists. Is Maya’s husband really dead? Is Joanna Lumley’s character as innocent as she seems? And, perhaps most importantly, what will Michelle Keegan (who plays Maya) wear next?
Judging by the number of comments and enquiries on social media, for many fans, Maya’s wardrobe is the most compelling draw of the eight-part show. Certainly, it provides a trove of inspiration for anyone hankering after a new winter coat in the sales. “Has anyone else noticed Michelle Keegan’s extensive coat selection?” one user asks on TikTok, where #foolmeoncenetflix has so far garnered 11.1m views. “Coats for days!”
So extensive is Keegan’s selection of outerwear that it is poised to do for coats what Sarah Lund, the detective in Danish TV series The Killing, once did for knits. Yet according to the show’s costume designer, Jacky Levy, coats are one of the trickiest garments to work with - particularly during a season where the trend is for bulky, oversized ones.
“Coats are hard to use on TV shows, because they can look too big and shapeless, especially on someone like Michelle, who is petite,” she explains. “It’s hard to find coats that don’t swamp her, but we found great ones from Dolce & Gabbana and Burberry, although even in the smallest size, they had to be altered. We also used a Holland Cooper coat, which was warm and substantial but still gave her a lovely shape.”
If Fool Me Once is about money and murder, it’s equally about class, with much of the show’s tensions deriving from the fact that Keegan’s character is a working-class woman who married into a wealthy upper-class family. Its icy matriarch, Judith Bartlett (played by Joanna Lumley) is perfectly styled in a consortium of tasteful neutrals, and it’s no surprise that Succession was on Levy’s moodboard. “Judith has bags of money, but we avoided making her look too stuffy or aristocratic. We wanted her to look soft, comfortable and sophisticated, as though she belonged in her mansion.”
To achieve this, Levy stuck to muted colours such as cream and navy, with the occasional pop of cornflower blue. “Joanna is the most gorgeous person,” she says. “Having been a model before she became an actor, she really knows how to wear clothes, which isn’t always the case with actors.” She recalls a garden scene in which Lumley was wearing that bastion of the upper-class wardrobe, a waterfall cardigan. “She walked to the nearest camera and swished it around - it looked beautiful, and I told her so afterwards. ‘I did it for you, darling’, she said.”
Keegan was also “a dream to dress - clothes just look good on her, and she was always accommodating of our ideas”. As a working mum with an army background, her character’s wardrobe had to be tough and functional as well as stylish, hence the proliferation of leather jackets. While she wears an Alexander McQueen jacket in one scene, for the most part she’s dressed in more accessible brands such as All Saints, Karen Millen, Emporio Armani and Rag & Bone.
Despite the huge exposure, Levy says that brands aren’t exactly queuing up to gift their wares to a Netflix show. “A few brands did give us things, but I tend to buy with TV [shows], because there’s so much action that you can’t guarantee you’ll be able to send anything back in the same state you received it. Our wardrobe budget wasn’t bad, but with some of Michelle’s clothes, I had to buy four or five of the same items, and that can get expensive.”
A costume veteran for over 40 years, Levy is no stranger to creating iconic TV wardrobes, most recently shaping the much-coveted looks of Hannah Waddingham’s character, Rebecca Welton, in Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. “Hannah is great fun,” she says. “She’s got an extraordinary figure, but it’s very rare that something off the peg fits her, so everything has to be tailored to her shape.” Even so, things don’t always go according to plan. Levy recalls an incident in which one of Waddington’s trademark pencil skirts split straight down the middle during a scene. “For continuity reasons, she had to be sewn into it again,” she laughs.
Despite her highly physical role, there were no such mishaps with Michelle Keegan, an actress who first found fame on Coronation Street and is, following her turn in Fool Me Once, now being tipped for Hollywood stardom. “She’s a confident person, but also modest,” says Levy of the 36 year-old, adding that she’s been deluged with enquiries about the provenance of every pair of jeans, trainers and coat style that Keegan wears.
“Social media has given people instant access [to information], and completely changed the game. I try to tag it all on Instagram, which is time-consuming, because you can’t screen-shot from Netflix. There’s something about [the medium of] TV that makes fashion seem more accessible, especially when it appears in a series of episodes that you watch over time. It’s just lovely that people are interested.”
Michelle Keegan’s costumes
Michelle wears the Holland Cooper ‘Regency’ coat (£599) during the funeral scene.
Italian wool coat, £295.20, Karen Millen; Colorblock polo, £75, Rag & Bone; Trench coat, £1,890, Burberry
