There are two things that “High Potential” fans have come to expect from Morgan Gillory: she’ll solve any crime thrown her way, and she’ll always make a fashion statement while doing so. That first part is mostly thanks to the ABC drama’s writers, but when it comes to Morgan’s signature style, the credit goes to costume designer Sandra Burns.
“It shows us a little bit of the way that she thinks, the way she puts things together,” Burns tells TVLine of Morgan’s outrageous fashion. “She likes to take risks, and she doesn’t care what other people think. She loves things that are bold and different. She’s unapologetically herself, and that’s how she wants to move about the world, wearing what she loves. Maybe the way she layers or combines things is a bit like the way her high potential intelligence works. She puts things together in a way that, honestly, most normal people wouldn’t.”
And thank goodness Morgan is anything but normal. As actress Kaitlin Olson tells TVLine, “Morgan’s wardrobe is a huge part of the character, so the outfits are extremely important. Because it’s so different from how I dress, the clothes really inform how I stand and move and carry myself.”
The process of dressing Morgan is a collaborative one, with Olson only occasionally vetoing an outfit if she’s “too uncomfortable in it for some reason.” But after working with Burns for two seasons, her faith in the show’s costume designer, whom she says “also happens to be a hilarious person,” is practically unshakeable.
“It’s not like a normal fitting where I help choose what top could go with what bottom,” Olson says. “None of these things go together! And yet somehow they all do! The more patterns the better. Or six different animal prints in the same outfit. Then she looks at me and says, ‘Too much?’ I love her.”
Below, Burns breaks down five of her favorite Season 2 looks for TVLine, including the skirt for which she received the most DMs from fans. (“Everyone wanted to know where the skirt was from,” she says.) Read on, then drop a comment with your own thoughts Morgan’s fashion below. What was your favorite outfit from Season 2?