A Conversation with “White Collar” Costume Designer, Stephanie Maslansky

"White Collar" Costume Designer, Stephanie Maslansky

Earlier this week, I had the wonderful opportunity to chat with White Collar Costume Designer, Stephanie Maslansky. Nice Girls do pay attention to fashion and I was struck by the Frank Sinatra and Rat Pack influence with Neal Caffrey’s choice of clothing and accessories. Although the idea was not Stephanie’s, it is clear that Caffrey wears the look well.

“The writer, whose name is Jeff Easton, I’m sure you know, had it in mind that he’s not a real clothing person but he did have a sense of that era in the late ‘50’s/early ‘60’s. He knew about Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. He was aware of that particular look and that’s not an era that’s difficult for, say, people in their forties and fifties to reach back and think about because some of us either recall that particular era, or we have parents who were alive during that era and we have old photos to get information from, and we have movies, and that sort of thing. So, it’s not something that we can necessarily not connect to. He appreciated that time, and he appreciated the music, and he appreciated what he saw of the style, and he wanted to work that into this particular character, Neal Caffrey, who in the story also has a very strong idea about style.”

The ideas for dressing each character come from a collaboration between Stephanie and the actors themselves. “We both have different ways of thinking about the character but in the long run, both the actor and I think about the character’s history, where he comes from.  There may be some valid information that the writers have come up with in terms of the actors’ history, but often times, a lot of it has to be made up by the actor and myself. I come with various ideas, the actor comes with various ideas and the first time we meet, we discuss these and we, sort of, feed off of one another.  We actually wind up giving each other great ideas about the history of the particular character.  That’s how we start to build or create closets, which would then be believable, based on the history of the character.”

Stephanie talked about the differences between all her lead characters. There isn’t one that she favors dressing more than another because they all have that individual “something” that was wonderful. “I love dressing Mozzie.  He’s so much fun, he’s so eccentric and he’s such a character.  We’ve had a lot of fun developing his look and we have moved away, I think, a little bit from what his look was in the pilot.  He looked a little more down and out, shall we say.  Now he’s got a little bit more of a— you never know where Mozzie finds his clothes.  He could find them under a pile on the street but he’s got a little bit more happening, a little more slickness, shall we say, a little more eccentricity, even more so, than I think, the pilot.

Tiffani Thiessen in White Collar

Of course, I love dressing Tiffani because she’s got a fantastic figure and she loves clothing.  You know, it’s my opportunity amongst the lead characters to dress a woman, and I of course love dealing with women’s clothes.  So that’s been a lot of fun too, and women’s jewelry.

I don’t get a lot of opportunities to deal with jewelry on men, although Neal has fabulous tie clips and fabulous cuff links, many of which come from Thomas Pink.  It’s really a lot of fun.  Every time I read another episode, I either think of clothes he already has in this closet, or looks that I’ve seen on the street or in different shops that are going to be absolutely perfect for that particular scene in that particular episode.
Even Peter, Peter’s character, even though his character has been wearing the same suit for years and years, we’ve, sort of, refined that and even though he wears the same style of shirt and the same style of suit, we’ve had a lot of fun choosing things that do look good on him and do work within his particular silhouette too.  Sort of a Brooks Brothers’ sensibility but we tailor his clothes.”

Now, ladies and gentlemen, get out your holiday lists and your credit cards, because Stephanie gave us a list of the places they shop for our characters’ clothes. “I’m so lucky to live in the greatest fashion capital in the world. I’m able to shop in so many wonderful stores and utilize so many fantastic designers. So for Tiffani, for example, I’ve shopped Hugo Boss, Prada, and Michael Kors. Burberry is one of our wonderful vendors who we love using. Like I mentioned, we use a lot of clothes from Thomas Pink, both for men and women. They have fantastic shirts, and jackets and skirts for women, as well as shirts and ties for men, and they’ve started a line of unbelievably tailored jackets and vests for men, as well. So we’re having a great time using Thomas Pink. Burberry is terrific. We use Moschino, Stella McCartney. We’ve used some Armani. We love using Philosophy, Alberta Ferretti. Let’s see. We’ve used Balenciaga, Gucci, we’ve used, Max Mara. As far as Neal is concerned, we’ve been wonderfully fortunate to be working with, in particular, John Varvatos, Paul Smith and Calvin Klein. Oh, Calvin Klein, we’ve also used Calvin Klein on Tiffani. We’ve got some gorgeous dresses and coats from Calvin Klein for Tiffani, but for Neal in particular, we’ve used those designers. We’ve used a little bit of Theory and of course, again, Thomas Pink has been a wonderful vendor for us. So, in particular for Neal, Varvatos, Paul Smith, Thomas Pink, and Calvin Klein.”

And there you have it! Stephanie says that, although she likes to use the listed venders for her characters, they do have a budget she needs to stick to. “We like to combine those high-end designers with other designers. We like to mix it up and I think it adds to the reality of how people really dress. People are, in general, a lot of people are very eclectic and people that are clever about how they dress, that’s what they do.

They’ll wear a vintage piece or they’ll wear something, a designer’s piece, and then they’ll mix it up with something from Daffy’s, or Century 21, or H&M, or Banana Republic, or any of those stores where you can do that. You can find a great-fitting pencil skirt from, for example, we found one from Daffy’s recently that was $30 and it looked amazing with a Valentino top that we had. So, you know, we do that often, partially because of budget restrictions and partially because that’s how, you know, I think it makes it look that much more interesting. So, there you are.”

Watch White Collar tonight at 10/9 central on USA Network.