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Costume designer Arielle Cooper-Lethem always knew she wanted to work in fashion, even from an early age. “I’ve always loved clothes—vintage clothes, especially—and kind of knew I wanted to do something in fashion, styling, or design from very small,” Cooper-Lethem said. She started working in retail at 14 and eventually landed an internship at W magazine in the accessories closet. “I learned so much. It was amazing, but I kind of quickly realized that fashion was not going to pay enough,” she said.
After continuing to work in retail and restaurants, Cooper-Lethem landed her big break when a friend’s mom was working as a production accountant on a Disney series. “I got a job dressing extras on this Cinemax series that was set in the ’70s, and I just loved it,” she said.
On the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, Cooper-Lethem sits down with Who What Wear Editorial Director Lauren Eggertsen to share how she went from dressing extras to overseeing the costume design for Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series, Too Much.
To read excerpts from the conversation, scroll below.
I’d love to hear a little bit about your background and how you got started in fashion and costume design, specifically in your career.
I’ve always loved clothes—vintage clothes, especially—and kind of knew I wanted to do something in fashion, styling, or design from very small. I started working retail at 14 and got a job in the accessories closet at W Magazine—an internship—my freshman year at NYU. I learned so much. It was amazing, but I kind of quickly realized that fashion was not going to pay enough. That was a very tough realization, because I was like, “What do I do now?”
I kind of had this long period of working retail, working restaurants, feeling lost without clothes, you know, in a creative sense in my life. Then I happened to have a friend’s mom who was doing accounting—she’s a production accountant—and she was working on a Disney series. She was like, “There are a lot of other productions in this building, and you should come and you should work with me and you should talk to some of the other costume designers in the building.”
I did, and I got a job dressing extras on this Cinemax series that was set in the ’70s, and I just loved it. It was so much fun. It just felt like I could kind of learn a lot, move through a lot of space really quickly. There’s a kind of hierarchy to fashion. A kind of very constant cycle to fashion that I don’t know, I guess, just didn’t work.
The second I found the film, it was like home. It’s like you’re just at a new summer camp every time you do a different project, and there’s a sort of permanence to it that’s really nice.
Can you start from the beginning and tell us how you got connected to Lena Dunham and the project, and just how it all started for you?
I met Lena through a mutual friend. Of course, I had watched Girls. I’m from New York. I guess there was a kind of thing around meeting her, because she was told to me by other people that she was the voice of my generation, right? She never said that, but the world kind of said that. We hung out a bunch of times, and she’s just the most lovable person on the face of the planet. Girls has aged better than anything.
I guess at some point her line was, “Oh, you’re a New Yorker who moved to London for love,” which I did. I married a Brit, and she was like, “You get it.” I read the scripts and there was so much costume in the script, which was really fun. I think a lot of what you see on camera just felt really clear from the moment I read these characters.
I know you mentioned that you do have that personal connection, because you moved to London for love. In terms of the costuming for Too Much, what would you say were kind of the key elements for you of things that represented New York style versus London style?
I mean, I’m a New Yorker. New Yorkers have the most swag in the world, obviously. I will say that I think that there’s a kind of eccentricity and individuality to London dressing, and also kind of more of a high and low mix, I think that really wanted to capture.
I think there’s an underground subculture that’s been a bit more preserved than it has in New York. In New York, you can really tell who someone is by looking at them, and it’s not necessarily a uniform, but we walk out of the house kind of ready to be out the whole day and prepared to have to go to three different kinds of events, right?
I think Londoners kind of lean into personal dressing a little bit more. It’s like, “I’m gonna show up wearing this no matter where I am.”
With sourcing, we definitely tried, where possible, to source American costumes in the States and UK costumes in the UK.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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