10 Bold Looks From ‘The Good Fight’
For this striking evocation of suffragette white, in which Diane goes head-to-head with John Cameron Mitchell’s Milo Yiannopoulos stand-in, Lawson pulled together a silver metallic brocade jacket by St. John, a cream-embroidered knit mock neck top by Akris and a Max Mara gray cashmere skirt. “I think this look on Diane is my favorite look ever.”
“I knew this Jason Wu dress was the look I wanted to use to introduce Lucca [Cush Jumbo] in the series the moment I saw it,” says Lawson. “I thought it was wonderfully sophisticated while it maintained a quirky vibe.”
Lawson says he was inspired by 16th- and 17th-century Spanish paintings and fabrics for Barbara Kolstad’s (Erica Tazel) look. “I wanted her to look expensive with a sort of ‘more is more’ philosophy to her clothing. If one pattern is good, two are better and three are great; all the while keeping it stylish and chic with a layering of textures.” Here, Tazel wears an Escada blue and silver brocade jacket, a Blaise Kavanagh gray-patterned blouse with self-tie bow, and that eye-catching silver pleated Zara skirt (out of shot).
“I wanted Jay to be well dressed but not look like one of the lawyers in the firm,” Lawson says. Nyambi Nyambi wears a maroon leather jacket by The Kooples, a maroon and blue print Ted Baker shirt and an Elie Tahari tie as the firm’s in-house investigator. “I like pairing more casual jackets with ties for him.”
“I like to keep her wardrobe interesting, but not too odd,” Lawson says of Carrie Preston’s spacey character Elsbeth Tascioni, seen here wearing a Nanette Lepore jacket. “I like that her clothing is believable as a lawyer but has that quirky edge that separates her from everyone else.”
“We wanted Lucca to show a little more skin than she usually does—be a little more sexy than usual. She started the outfit with a jacket over it, and then at the bar she has the jacket off to reveal this Alexander McQueen black and gold lace print dress that put me in mind of leopard. I thought it was cool to hint at leopard without hitting it on the head.”
“Christine Baranski was so incredibly chic and vibrant in this red-patterned Akris suit with asymmetrical center front zip closure. I just found the color to be magnificent, and Christine wore it so well,” Lawson says.
Lawson says that “We wanted [John Cameron Mitchell’s] look on the show to be outrageous, but still elegant and refined. He wore a blue- and turquoise-patterned Burberry jacket, an aqua Polo V-neck sweater, a purple Ted Baker tie and a white Thomas Pink shirt. I thought he looked wonderfully colorful, but it was all kind of tasteful and elegant.”
“Barbara is in a stunning dress with matching long jacket by Ted Baker. The suit has beautiful colorful butterflies on a pale blue background. The silk has a nice sheen that catches the light nicely.”
“I love that Lucca wears clothing that would not necessarily be considered work clothes. It’s like workwear with a major chic twist.” Of this red and blue velvet/velour textured Yigal Azrouel dress with a maroon mesh long sleeve top by Fuzzi underneath, Lawson says, “I also thought this dress would stand out in a crowd, and she would have picked it out knowing that she might run into Colin.”
There came a point in pretty much every episode of The Good Wife when you just had to pause and take a moment to appreciate the spectacular audacity of Diane Lockhart’s necklaces; huge, chunky, statement-making accessories that telegraphed the supreme confidence with which Christine Baranski played the character. And in the first season of Robert and Michelle King’s Good Wife spin-off, The Good Fight, costume designer Dan Lawson is pushing the boundaries of what Diane and her fellow lawyers wear even further.
“I feel like I have upped the fashion ante on The Good Fight,” says Lawson, who also styled The Good Wife.
The fact that the show streams exclusively online via CBS All Access has made it possible for the writers to push the boundaries as well, dropping F-bombs and addressing issues that might not have passed muster on broadcast TV. And Lawson is dressing the show’s characters to match this heightened reality.
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“I try to ask everything about the characters,” Lawson says. “I get to play all the roles in my head. I ask myself things like ‘What would I wear in this situation? How do I feel? Who am I trying to impress or not impress?’ I try to delve as deeply as I can into each character.”
The high water mark comes in Episode 6—the one where Hedwig creator and star John Cameron Mitchell plays a slimy, outrageously attired Milo Yiannopoulos type. Every scene featuring both Mitchell and Baranski is like the sartorial equivalent of a rap battle, like both characters are trying to outdo each other with their patterns and textiles and the sheer gutsiness with which they wear their clothes. Also, Erica Tazel wears a metallic silver pleated skirt—to work at a Chicago law firm!
Lawson admits that he doesn’t know many lawyers with quite the penchant for fashion as the folks at Reddick, Boseman, & Kolstad—though he says both Baranski and The Good Wife star Julianna Margulies have heard from lawyers who love the way the characters are turned out on both shows.
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“The Good Fight has a heightened reality to it,” he says. “That makes it fun for me, and elegant and chic for the actors!”
See how much fun they all had by checking out some of our favorite looks from the series so far, in the gallery above.
