Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and Deborah (Jean Smart) deserve their happily ever after.Courtesy of HBOFor five years, between May 13, 2021 and this spring, HBO’s Hacks has been delighting audiences everywhere with its comedy and emotional range. Written and created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, the show has followed the stories of Ava (Hannah Einbinder), a young writer trying to break into Hollywood on her own terms, and comedy superstar Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) who has been pushing back against the sexism rampant in comedy. Often with nothing but her quick mind and forceful personality on her side, for the decades of her career Deborah succeeds against all odds stacked against her, and the show openly acknowledges that the challenges she faces are specific to her gender. Male comedians, literally any male comedian, never have to put up with the same idiotic issues that Deborah does; they exist only because she is a woman.Like most members of the audience, this writer became a huge fan of Hacks by the end of the pilot, it quickly became a sensation; from its debut the series has been the recipient of critical and popular acclaim. It is a special thing for a show to run for so many years, especially since it has never received a Rotten Tomatoes score of less than 98%.I was able to speak with Kathleen Felix-Hager, costume designer for all five seasons of Hacks, last year about Season Four, and this year I was lucky enough to sit down with her again, this time joined by Rob Tokarz, who served as the series art director for Season Two and who has been its production designer for Seasons Three through Five.Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder)- the latter having her 'Pretty Woman' moment.Courtesy of HBOThe Magical Bob Mackie Hacks has had too many excellent costumes to begin trying to pick any favorites, but this year’s episodes are the first to feature the closets kept by its characters. Early on in Season Five we finally get to see how Deborah Vance’s wardrobe is stored and displayed, and in Episode Seven, Montecito, we get to see another closet, one matching hers in its majestic equality. The episode, named for the destination in one of Deborah and Ava’s roadtips, is centered around a specific, Bob-Mackie-designed jumpsuit, once owned and worn by Carol Burnett. Now in the possession of Kelly Kilpatrick (Cherry Jones), Deborah, dragging a complaining Ava with her as a kind of opposite beard, decides to con Kilpatrick and her wife Monica (Leslie Bibb). It is both unnecessary and hilarious, and, for those of us who have been shipping Deborah and Ava for five entire seasons, it was the magical (and cathartic) episode we have been dreaming of. As exceptional as I found the Montecito episode to be, it’s my favorite of the season, I could not focus on the rest of the show until I’d asked the costume and production designer about the reason for the pilgrimage and the subterfuge Deborah’s mission requires: a gorgeous white piece designed by Bob Mackie.Costume designer, Bob Mackie, in his cameo, on a set designed by Rob Tokarz.Courtesy of HBOIn case anyone has been living under a rock, Bob Mackie is basically the godfather of Hollywood glamor. With the help of Ray Aghayan and Rhett Turner, Mackie is responsible for more iconic masterpieces, specifically designed for leading ladies, than any other costume designer this historian can think of. If you think of basically any besquined decadence worn by Cher on stage- it is probably Bob Mackie. As someone who has loved his work for more decades than this writer cares to admit, I needed to know every detail Felix-Hager might be willing to share about including his work in Hacks final season.“I got the original from Mr. Mackie himself,” the award-winning costume designer told me, “who hand-delivered this piece of clothing to me. It made me almost weak to meet him and to be handed off this piece of history. We recreated it based on the original, stitch for stitch, bead for bead, because Jean is like a foot taller than Carol Burnett. I'm really proud of that piece. It was fun to see it as a set dressing in the closet. And then we see it later on Jean, it was an important throughline for the season. It meant so much to her and, for me personally, to recreate a piece of history and be very respectful to Mr. Mackie's designs, it was really a privilege to be able to do that. And then we get to see him on the show, too.”Deborah Vance, Queen of Hearts (Jean Smart) and her pop star boy toy Nico Hayes (Christopher Briney).Courtesy of HBOIt wasn’t just getting the Carol Burnett piece, though obtaining and recreating that design would have been a triumph in and of itself, Mackie was one of the many cameos featured in the last season of Hacks. We see him at work, at his desk, which means that the production designer got to recreate the workspace of one of costume design’s living legends. This writer has zero poker face, but the people I was speaking with didn’t just understand my enthusiasm, they shared it. Getting to include this small piece of the story was incredible and meaningful to both costume and production design.“He was so great to work with,” Tokarz said of Mackie, “he’s amazing. We had a little piece of his studio that we created, and we kind of developed a relationship getting photos from him. And when we do the Diva, he has these excellent illustrations of these beautiful show girls, all in these flamboyant outfits. We were trying to find a high-res image of them, because we wanted to bring them into The Diva to give us a little bit of backstory. We reached out to him and the next day he FedExed all of his original artwork over to the art department. We were able to do wonderful scans and honor the drawings. So, when you see The Diva, outside, there are these light boxes that are Bob Mackey's illustrations. He's kind of woven through the story.”Ava (Hannah Einbinder) and Deborah (Jean Smart) and Damien (Mark Indelicato) when things are looking up.Courtesy of HBOLovely Reader, I felt like a cartoon wolf, listening to this story. I’ve told you many times that I believe that Movie Magic is the result of mutual respect between the creative departments working behind the scenes, and what I was hearing was confirming so very many of my biases. But there was much more I wanted to know about Hacks, a series I loved long before I was able to write about it last season. So I (figuratively) wiped away the drool inspired by the designs of Bob Mackie and asked about Kelly Kilpatrick’s closet, how it compared and competed with Deborah’s. Ladies With Competing Closets When we finally get to see Deborah’s closet at the start of the season, it is just as fabulous as some of us have been dreaming it might be, and I wanted to know how the production designer had decided how it would look, and how his department had made sure that the space fit effortlessly into the rest of the comedian’s palatial Las Vegas home. Because it really does feel like it’s been there this whole time, even if the audience doesn’t get to see inside until the final season.“It was really exciting that we got to do her closet,” Tokarz said to me with a grin, “that was one of my favorite things. I always wanted to add it to the mansion, and this season was our opportunity. Kelly Kilpatrick (Cherry Jones) is happy to make Deborah beg.Courtesy of HBOWe wanted to make sure that it felt like an incredibly private space, but beautiful, soft and comfortable. In Season One, they did her wig room, which was this really great icy blue and I wanted her closet to feel like too. So we brought in some of the icy blues, a very similar wallpaper from the same company, and then brought in some of the pinks that we love for her.”Later in the season, during the seventh episode, we see another impressive wardrobe, one which resides in an equally impressive space. In Montecito, closet-envy is one of many examples of Deborah’s competitive nature, which the character is unable to repress while trying to scam fellow comedian, Cherry Kilpatrick.Kilpatrick is Deborah’s peer, though our leading lady would probably prefer to not have any of those, though her aesthetic is not one that Ava’s boss understands. We hear about her wardrobe before we get to see it, we know it’s going to be special and important, and I wanted to know how the costume designer went about recreating and populating the episode with so many historic looks from Hollywood history.Monica (Leslie Bibb) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) share a moment in the Montecito kitchen.Courtesy of HBO“Our department worked really closely with the set decorator,” Felix-Hager explained, “and Jennifer Lukehart was really great about recreating iconic looks. The Merv Griffin blazer was a vintage blazer that we found, I don't think it really belonged to Merv Griffin. Cherry Jones was so game and she was fantastic to work with.”The home of Cherry’s enviable wardrobe, her collection, when she gets to see the space, it is clear in Jean Smart’s expression how close to jealous Deborah feels. It’s not often that this character experiences envy, at least not about interior design, a fact made very clear when she visits her sister’s home in another Season Five episode. Inside of Cherry’s closet, we see some seriously biblical coveting, and it was a joy to watch all of these talented people working together to execute such a complex emotional experience. “That closet conceptually was really tricky,” Tokarz said. “We kept going back because, on the one hand, it's a museum of these wonderful artifacts. But we also wanted to feel like it was actually one of her closets. We had toyed with the idea of building it at one point, of turning a billiard room in the house into a closet and bringing elements in. And then, on the last scout to this house, we turned a corner through the bedroom. It was the first time we'd actually seen it, this was one space in the house that we hadn't seen scouting. And it worked out magnificently architecturally. We had all this light that worked, the LED didn't flicker on camera, so we got to use the existing lighting. Jen Lukehart and Amy R. Strong, her shopper, really went whole hog trying to create backstories for all these pieces. Most of what you see has some kind of backstory. I mean, we have the Audrey Hepburn dress, I think the Back to the Future sneakers are in there, we tried to find reproductions. I think everything belonged to someone. It's not necessarily that it matches it, it's more like you believe that somebody owned that and it was significant.”Monica (Leslie Bibb) and Kelly Kilpatrick (Cherry Jones) make Deborah work for her Carol Burnett outfit.Courtesy of HBOLuSaque & Schaefer (or Schaefer & LuSaque)In a season about legacy, what it means and how it happens, it makes sense that Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) and Kayla (Megan Stalter), both of whom have followed in the footsteps of agent parents, would have their own full-circle moments. But before that is achieved, and to serve that moment at the end of the series, we’re treated to scenes which contrast the many differences between what our scrappy partners have achieved and where they came from. I asked the production designer about the contrast between Latitude and LuSaque & Schaefer (or Schaefer & LuSaque), both physical and cultural differences, which illustrate the parts of the business that Jimmy and Kayla are actively working to change. “I inherited Latitude from Season One,” Tokarz explained. “We shot Season Two there, and it's a very clean kind of agency space with a really great view as a location that we shot in Beverly Hills. We wanted to make sure Loussac and Schaefer felt like a scrappy agency.” But when it came time to film the final season of Hacks, the space they had used for Latitude no longer existed. Kayla (Megan Stalter) and Jimmy (Paul W. Downs), BFFs and the best business partners ever.Courtesy of HBO“They had completely gutted it,” the production designer told me, “it did not exist anymore, so we had to recreate the space on stage. We started with LuSaque & Schaefer from last season. We wanted that space, when we did it originally, to feel very contemporary, a little more industrial. They're not there yet, but they can get there and they have taste. We started with the location that we saw at the end of Season Three, which we then recreated. We built on a platform and made the footprint the same, but brought in our elements. We did a big backing, they happened to have the image outside of the American Cement Building. Once they had to give up that building, our challenge was now we had to bring Latitude back, but it had to fit the exact same footprint because the cost of the deck was so high.”This sounded like a massive amount of work, maybe even an impossible challenge, I said. But without the conversation I was having, there was no way I would have guessed that the Latitude in Season Five hadn’t been filmed in the office building I remembered. I had to know how his department recreated it on a soundstage, was he working from images alone? “Luckily, my set designer had actually surveyed that space in the past before it was torn down. And we had all of our notes and photographs. So, it's about a 90% scale match to the space. But within that space, the most important thing for our showrunners was the relationship between Jimmy's and Kayla's desks.”Kayla (Megan Stalter) and Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) and Randi (Robby Hoffman), LuSaque & Schaefer forever!Courtesy of HBOOne of the first bits between these two characters, established early on in the first season of Hacks, relied upon the distance between Kayla and Jimmy’s workspaces. To call back to that at the very end, to make certain the jokes landed and that this facet of the story came to its elegant conclusion, those of us in the audience couldn’t think for a moment that it was a different office than the one we remembered. “We wanted to make sure that those shots matched perfectly,” Tokarz explained. “Sometimes it's really fun to recreate things that existed in the past, because you give yourself this challenge, how close can we get? How much can I reuse? The windows are reused from LuSaque & Schaefer, we tried to create that space with as many elements that existed while still honoring where we were originally. We took screen grabs and we made sure that, as we were going through the process, everything looked exactly right. We had a couple of places we could fudge, and one of my favorite little cheats in the space is the stairwell. In the original space there's a stairwell in the center that goes to the lobby. But ours only goes down about four or five feet, we trompe l'oeil the rest of the staircase. We put the carpet in, and we have fantastic scenic artists put the shadow in the carpet. We have a lot of really fun shots of the crew fake-walking down the stairs.”Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) second Latitude mailroom stint.Courtesy of HBOVery Serious Business People, Sort Of?Jimmy LuSaque and Kayla Schaefer’s partnership and friendship is one of the many uplifting and ultimately optimistic stories in Hacks. The world of film and television, similar to the world of high fashion, sometimes feels universally accepted as a cut-throat industry with no room for feelings like kindness or appreciation. But those things, along with patience and a willingness to think outside of one’s own perspective, are what make LuSaque & Schaefer (or Schaefer & LuSaque), into an agency that survives when an older firm, like Latitude, falls to the wayside. One of the reasons that the business thrives in an ever-evolving industry is the owner’s hiring practices, and Randi (Robby Hoffman) is a treasure of a human being. Like her employers, Randi does not try to be anything other than herself, which Jimmy and Kayla allow and which leads to many, many moments of comedic genius. I’d learned a lot about the character when I spoke with the Hacks costume designer last year, this time I asked about how Randi has come into herself since her introduction; her arc was an example of one of the many times that costumes in this show do the exemplary work of proving to the audience who a character is when doing so with words would ruin a moment.This season, Ava (Hannah Einbinder) knows how lucky she is to have Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) on her team.Courtesy of HBO“I think I used literally every piece of J.Crew men's line and tailored it to her figure,” Felix-Hager said to me with a gentle laugh and smile. “It was incredible to work with her. Robbi has a very distinct personal style and really, we just leaned into it. That's what she's comfortable in and it worked perfectly for the Randy character. She's a beautiful person, really fun, and when you see her against Kayla, it's like a visual ping pong that is so good on camera.”I didn’t think about it that way while I was watching the fifth season, but the moment the costume designer explained it to me that way I knew exactly what she meant. Robbi isn’t exactly a foil, but the ways her character is unique are in equal intensity and proportion to Kayla, another favorite character of this writer’s (they are all my favorite). Over the 47 episodes that make up Hacks, Kayla has had one wild and wonderful outfit after another. She is the Mama Bear of LuSaque & Schaefer (or Schaefer & LuSaque) and it feels absolutely correct that her wardrobe be a mash-up of fantastic silliness and over-the-top trend starting. Kayla would NEVER chase a trend, and it is perfection how well her clothing spans the range which exists between frivolity and inspiring terror in one’s enemies.Kayla (Megan Stalter) and Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) are heroes and champions.Courtesy of HBOIt was too hard for me to pick only an outfit or two to ask the costume designer about, I had no idea how to narrow that list of options down, so I asked instead if she had a favorite look from the final season of Hacks. “I love that one with the little pearls all over it,” Felix-Hager said. “It was a bedazzled pantsuit, jeans and a vest, and we altered that top, we added that collar. I love that I can find pieces out in the world and then just put our spin on it, so I'm constantly changing and adding, and taking things off or changing buttons and adding a collar to make it feel very personal to each character.”Celebrity Amazing RaceWhen a beloved series like Hacks makes the difficult decision to come to an end, excellent storytellers and showrunners, like Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky obviously are, have a lot of story arcs to close, and every one of them needed to satisfy both critics and fans. Since the world that this story inhabits is centered around Deborah Vance, onstage and off, the last season had to find a way to resolve the ongoing tension between our star comedian and her daughter, Deborah Vance, Jr. (Kaitlin Olsen). While waiting for the season debut, knowing this would be that last year HBO would release new episodes, it seems certain that fans the world over were wondering how that would happen. This writer could not have imagined that it would involve a reality TV series, a real one, but looking back over all that has happened since the pilot premiered in mid-May of 2021, I’m not sure a better conclusion could have been written.Deborah Junior (Kaitlin Olsen) finds success with her jewelry brand and gets to sell it on TVCourtesy of HBOBetween the needs of resolving each character’s emotional journey in Hacks and the existing, very real IP that is The Amazing Race, it was obvious how much time and effort had gone into the collaboration between production and costume design. As a viewer it all seemed natural, but in much the same way as a ‘no-makeup’ look can take just as much time to apply to one’s face as a smoky eye, I suspected that a nearly unfathomable amount of work had happened off camera and was responsible for the successful resolution of the character’s relationship that the show ends on.“That seemed like the longest episode to take to film,” Felix-Hager said to me with a laugh, “because we cross-board and it was months and months of one scene, and then we would do another. Everyone that was on The Amazing Race had stunt doubles, so we had to double all of those characters.”Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) makes a killer clown.Courtesy of HBOI asked if she’d tell me about the bit with the clown costumes, which was out of character enough to feel absurd for Deborah, but still felt true to the reality show. I was curious how she’d made that work, its only a few minutes of screen time, but with so many competitors, plus all the stunt people I’d just learned were involved, it seemed like a ton of planning and organization had gone into a very few moments of Hacks final season.“The clowns were a really fun nod to the vintage clown situation,” the costume designer explained. “They had to be able to be put on easily. They had to fit in a range of actors and sizes. I think we made maybe 20 of those clown costumes. And then we had additional clowns, those all matched. And then we had additional ones for the clown teachers. All those clown costumes on a rack, just waiting to be filmed, they made me so happy every single day. I couldn’t wait for them to get on camera. It was this rack of joy, all of those polka dots and stripes. And I think it turned out great, especially the collaboration between hair and makeup.”From the production design perspective there was just as much work, from a petting zoo that needed planning to the scene which required a character to literally roll down a massive hill.DJ (Kaitlin Olsen) and Deborah (Jean Smart) mid-adventure on 'The Amazing Race'.Courtesy of HBO“The hill itself was something that took us like 20 different locations to find just the right combination of what we needed,” Tokarz said. “It had to feel like it could be in Mexico, green enough for what we wanted it to look like and manageable for stunt actors. Eventually we landed there, but because of the logistics we needed to put a bunch of locations together. We try to match things, so we did the goat milking, the cheese wheel. And I think we did a clue box in the same location on the same day. Then we were out in Riverside, looking for the clown theater, and found another couple of little spots. We were all over, we were scattered from Santa Clarita, Riverside and some of it in Los Angeles. The locations had some breadth to them, and that hill had to look steep enough on camera.” “That hill was very steep, Rob,” the costume designer said to her colleague with a laugh.“It was very steep,” he agreed with a grin. “Jeff Rosenberg, the director of that episode, I think he told me he did like 30,000 steps that day just running up and down that hill.”Deborah has some hard moments this season, like when she gets trapped in a glass box above Los Vegas.Courtesy of HBOAn Up-Skirt Statue Made For A DivaAs the narrative of Hacks works its way towards its conclusion, we know that Deborah’s future will include a boutique casino that she’s spent the season planning with her onetime employee, now a business partner, Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins). Setting the business up, decorating, shopping and all the other preparations for the opening assist in moving the plot towards its conclusion. But a casino would not be Deborah Vance’s, or celebrate her personality and career, without a zinger or two. Before our conversation ended I made a point of asking the designers about my favorite part; a statue of the iconic comedian, purpose built for selfies. The up-skirt statue. It was silly and smart and I asked if they’d tell me about one of the last jokes we get to enjoy from Deborah.“We knew what our end result was,” production designer Rob Tokarz explained, “we just had to figure out the way to make it happen. We knew we needed to do 3D printed models; then it was a lot of conversations about what they wanted her to wear. Then it became about what the poses would be, trying to figure out references. One was the Marilyn Monroe statue in Palm Springs, I think that's what originated the idea. With our digital effects department, we had Jean go in and get 3D scans so that we had a really high resolution model of her.”Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) in his dapper white tuxedo at the end of the series.Courtesy of HBO“Then came the negotiations about what the inflated model would be, a lot of conversations about cleavage, how ostentatious, what was the right match and how thin we wanted her waist to be. Because we're thinking about this as Deborah Vance's ideal form of herself, this is to outlive her. I couldn't even tell you how many dozens of emails there were, how many dozens of renditions. Once we landed on the look that we wanted, we used a shop here in Los Angeles that 3D printed it. They happen to be fans of the show and they just knocked it out of the park. They went above and beyond what we expected them to do, in painting the model and making sure that it all felt right and real.”I told the designers how glad I was that, when the story ended, Marcus was working with Deborah again, only now they were much closer to equals. When he shows her the casino’s performance space, when its name is revealed, when we see that silhouette on the signage; it all felt like a full circle moment, but one that allowed these beloved characters to have achieved personal growth. I loved seeing Marcus independent and confident. That was in his voice and his body language, but I could also see it in his clothes. Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) in the fuschia dress designed by Kathleen Felix-Hager.Courtesy of HBO“When we first meet Marcus,” Kathleen Felix-Hager said, “he’s pretty serious and he has a very distinct color palette. It was a lot of earth tones and mustards, burgundies and darker tones. Then, in Season Four, we completely lightened him up. He’s not working for Deborah anymore, he's doing his own thing. He's living in Vegas, trying to make his own businesses. So we really went the opposite way. We put him in more pastels, lighter colors, lighter textures, more linen, less buttoned up shirts. And Carl himself, he just wears clothes very well.” “After talking to Rob and seeing what the direction of the casino was going to be, that space was very Art Deco. We really wanted to lean into it. It was fun to see his evolution, and at the end, in that beautiful white tuxedo, he was very James Bond, really old Hollywood, like Cary Grant. I knew I wanted Debra to pop, and Rob was doing this beautiful white space. That color, that fuchsia gown just seemed to be the right choice. And it felt like something that she would choose,Deborah is the center of attention and your eye goes to that color. We were prepping that for a long time. We had every cast member, all of our regulars were in that scene. There were so many people, and everyone's outfit was so quintessentially them. Ava had on an incredible dress, and everyone looked so spectacular. And that set was gorgeous, Rob. It felt a little bittersweet, because it was the end, but it was this beautiful end, a very happy ending.”All five seasons of ‘Hacks’, are now available to stream on HBO Max.Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), Deborah (Jean Smart) and Marty Ghilain (Christopher McDonald) look at the stage in The Diva.Courtesy of HBOMORE FROM FORBESForbesDesigning Excellent Costumes For A Whole Cast Of ‘Hacks’By Rachel Elspeth GrossForbesHow The Women Of Gilead Are Defined By Their Clothes In ‘The Testaments’By Rachel Elspeth GrossForbesFrom Redcoats To Rococo Madness—Costuming ‘The Artful Dodger’By Rachel Elspeth Gross