“Hacks” costume designer Kathleen Felix-Hager came across the script for Episode 3 of the show’s final season, and there was one line that stood out: “Deborah shows up in a dress made of playing cards.”
Since it was early in prep, Felix-Hager had time to consider what that would look like. It was through conversations with the showrunners Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky and coming up with sketches that she landed on a “Queen of Hearts”-inspired red dress. Rory Cunningham, Head of Workroom, created the dress, which was made of three pieces: a corseted strapless gown, a bolero jacket, and a skirt that hooks on. “There are all real playing cards that are stitched on that dress,” Felix-Hager explained.
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For “The Comeback,” costume designer Tom Broecker read the script for the Season 3 opener and saw that Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) would be playing Roxie Hart in “Chicago” as part of the storyline. However, the creatives didn’t have clearance to use the copyrighted outfit from the Broadway show.
Luckily for Broecker, he knew one of the stage managers of the long-running production and collaborated with them to brainstorm ideas about what would work. But he kept encountering roadblocks. The more roadblocks that came his way, the more creative Broecker got. “I went back to the original done by Patricia Zipprodt (creator of the original costumes in 1975 for Bob Fosse), and we had a version of it made for Lisa.” However, legal restrictions meant Broecker had to tweak the designs even further. He eventually found a way to turn the challenge into a positive. “We added more sparkle and that was better for the camera.”
