There are two stories at play in HBO’s Love and Death.
On one side, you have the scandalous small town adultery narrative in which Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen) decides to take a lover in the form of Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons). Often funny, sometimes touching, and nearly always awkward, these scenes portray Candy and Allan in a romantic light, made foolish by the thrill of the illicit. On the other side, you have an extraordinarily intense courtroom drama in which Candy, on trial for the murder of Allan’s wife Betty (Lily Rabe), faces withering public scorn in addition to the possibility of life in prison.
Costume designer Audrey Fisher’s wardrobe supports both of these narratives, providing authentic and period-specific looks while allowing room for Fisher’s artistic interpretations to shine through.
“Pre-trial, it felt like we could develop the world and make those scenes more about my design sense. Researching late 1970s clothes, riffing off the material available about Candy and others, and putting enormous lookbooks — I have a whole office full of Sears catalogs, Montgomery Ward catalogs, Time magazines, People magazines, Rolling Stone, Red Book, McCall’s — allowed me to have fun and find things that work,” Fisher explained. “Then, when we get to the second half of the arrest through the trial, that’s when I really have actual imagery, actual images, of the real people. At that point, it’s our responsibility to really try to represent authentically what these characters, what these people, were going through.”
Fisher worked closely with star Olsen to collaboratively settle on fits, colors, and so forth in the fitting room. If research failed to produce the desired outcome, she would lean on her own inner sense of style and what felt right to Olsen. Candy’s extensive wardrobe throughout the entire series would total 120 looks with the most critical and thematically salient moments coming in the trial sequences.
Attorney Don Crowder (Tom Pelphrey) reportedly helped re-orchestrate Candy’s entire look to support his self-defense strategy. It put Candy in the position of wearing a costume of her own during the trial.
“The real life Candy was sort of costuming herself to appear smaller, more demure, not as not intimidating at all. As if, she could never possibly have committed this horrible crime,” Fisher shared.
Fisher’s costume designs also helped define the vast differences between Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore. The wealthier Montgomery family likely shopped outside of their small town of Wylie, Texas, and vented into Dallas for a higher, flashier, more expensive style. As Candy was initially seen as the head cheerleader-type of the town, Fisher’s selections for the earlier scenes leaned to fitted t-shirts and jeans and a color palette inclusive of pinks and navys. Her looks were seen as inspired by the popular women of the era like Cheryl Tiegs or Olivia Newton-John. Her adultery phase included a parade of expensive lingerie and a trench coat, underscoring the clandestine, thrill-seeking side of Candy. Almost as if she were play-acting at the time.
The Gore family, on the other hand, was less wealthy with Betty likely making clothes for her children and selecting more simple, less expensive outfits for herself. Betty’s outfits, according to Fisher, were also more demure, more tucked-in, reflecting her deeply religious background on a budget. As a teacher, Betty’s clothes also needed to reflect the fact that she’s a working woman, not like Candy who spent much of her day volunteering and reading books to kids at church.
The outfit in which Betty was murdered was carefully described in the police report, giving Fisher an exact look to strive for when recreating those horrifying moments.
“With Betty, we had to find a good yellow that worked well, and we added that little sort of ditsy floral edging around the neck and the sleeve,” Fisher described. “We had to find a short that was easy to move in and could do all the stunts in. Then, I found a good sandal that made sense that she can move in and also do the stunts in.”
Upon looking back on the experience, Fisher found the most pride in the costume design for the courtroom sequences and the reflection of Candy appearing at court in a costume of her own. She also found immense satisfaction in knowing she so closely aligned the final vintage looks for the series with the photographed looks shared through the media at the time.
As Candy is still alive and is living in Georgia, Fisher felt an enormous responsibility to represent her accurately whether or not she ultimately watched the series. (Montgomery was not involved in the making of Love and Death.)
“I want her to feel like I represented her truthfully or authentically. I know it’s a strange relationship to have with this person who’s still alive and who didn’t want to be involved but might watch it. It’s this strange communication across this television show, but I did feel a responsibility since this is such a tragic story, and these are real people. So I feel very proud of achieving that.”
Love and Death streams exclusively on MAX.
