If there's one fashion lesson to learn from “Palm Royale,” it's that you can look fabulous even if you're broke, marooned at sea or, say, in a coma.
The 10-episode Apple TV+ series is set in Palm Beach, Florida, in the 1960s, and is loosely inspired by Juliet McDaniel's 2018 novel, “Mr. and Mrs. American Pie.” The story follows Maxine Simmons (Kristen Wiig), a former Tennessee beauty queen married to Douglas (Josh Lucas), a handsome pilot who is also the heir to the plastics and mouthwash fortune of her aunt, the formidable Norma Dellacourte ( Carol Burnett).
Maxine is a desperate social climber who will literally scale walls to enter the exclusive Palm Royale country club, a candy-colored oasis of indulgent leisure and unbridled envy. With Norma in a coma, the inheritance is in limbo, but that doesn't stop Maxine from lying, stealing, and charming her way into Palm Beach high society. And yet, we tend to like each other.
She meets her social and stylistic opposite, Linda Shaw (Laura Dern), who runs a feminist collective in a West Palm Beach bookstore, Our Bodies Our Shelves.
Los Angeles native Alix Friedberg was given the enviable costume design duties, which turned into a deep dive into those opposing mid-century styles: high-society high society versus earthy hippie.
“At first, Laura Dern called me to tell me about it. She said the story took place in 1969 in Palm Beach, a Slim Aarons vibe, and you immediately know what that is. It’s that rarefied, aspirational, colorful poolside world,” said Friedberg, who was also a costume designer on another Dern vehicle, “Big Little Lies.”
To absorb the aesthetic, Friedberg studied Western Costume Co.'s archive of fashion and society magazines, photography books, and society and celebrity press coverage of such doyennes as Betsy Bloomingdale, Deeda Blair, Barbara Stanwyck, and Elizabeth Taylor. She found jewel-toned kaftans, playful Lilly Pulitzer prints, and metallic brocades, all adorned with a treasure chest full of bold accessories.
The cheerful prints were part of the 1960s looks that costume designer Alix Friedberg created for star Kristen Wiig.
(Apple TV+)
Credibly dressing the cast challenged the designer to find pristine examples of vintage couture, swimwear, golf and tennis attire, as well as a distinctive palette of bohemian clothing for the West Palm Beach characters. He estimated that 60% of the costumes were custom-made, especially for the 6-foot-tall character of Evelyn Rollins, played by Allison Janney.
“In our show, it has to look like everyone just shopped on Worth Avenue and everything is new and shiny and shiny and has never been used,” Friedberg said. “It was really a challenge to get things that looked shiny and new that were half a century old.”
To speed up the vast search, Friedberg had to strategize smartly for the 2022 shoot in Los Angeles.
“We cast a very wide net and put together a document (a mood board) for vendors to understand the world we were trying to create,” Friedberg said. Some of his key sources were high-end vintage boutiques in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, but also random online sellers and Etsy, a source of things like reproductions of frilly '60s shower caps.
Despite spending several episodes unconscious or immobilized in a bed or wheelchair, Carol Burnett's Norma is always in her hair, makeup, and accessorized, often with a dazzling turban and earrings.
(Apple TV+)
“It was a lot, a lot of fun,” Friedberg said. “There was so much joy every day opening a box and seeing what was shipped from Philadelphia, and it's like an original Galanos that is just stunning. People were very excited about the cast and the world we were creating. We'd open these boxes and there would be things with original labels and several of the same golf pants in different sizes, like someone had closed a department store and kept it in their basement all these years, waiting for 'Palm Royale.'
“Time and time again we find these treasures,” he said.
What they couldn't buy, they built at Western Costume and beyond. “There were some months when we had everyone on the payroll who had a sewing machine and a union card,” he said.
Working with vintage clothing carries unique risks. A memorable '60s original for Wiig in the second episode didn't hold up to use.
“All the pants completely disintegrated. The threads of the fabric began to separate. And that happened on more than one occasion,” she said. Consequently, his team turned to modern fabric printing techniques to replicate any items that appeared more than once or were intentionally destroyed.
Aside from the socialites, costume designer Alix Friedberg also created 1960s looks for early feminists in “Palm Roayle,” like Laura Dern's character.
(Erica Parise / Apple TV+)
With unfortunate regularity, Wiig's Maxine dives into the water dressed in formal dresses. When Friedberg learned that a vintage yellow chiffon dress would be dipped on Wiig, his team rushed to make three copies. They dyed chiffon to match the skirt and miraculously found two more originals on Etsy to cut to size and repurpose the white beaded bodice.
Another watery scene required five copies of a pink chiffon dress made from 20 yards of various shades of pink. “We found some beaded fabric, cut them up and reused them on the bodice so they would match perfectly,” she said.
Each hour-long episode features some extravagant scene at a boutique, party or colorful gathering that required many specific star looks. The themed galas, often a plot point of the series, included dancers in extravagant costumes and elaborate sets that required intense coordination with the production design team and clever calibration of color palettes to keep the characters different.
The intense focus on actual couture clothing led to some fun hype. For Burnett's Norma, despite spending several episodes unconscious or immobilized in a bed or wheelchair, the character is coiffed, made up, and adorned, often with a dazzling turban and earrings.
Throughout, the pressure for perfection pushes Wiig's Maxine to maintain her ultimate style that is both optimistic and uncomfortable.
Like Maxine, Friedberg and her team were energized by the stunning clothes and atmosphere of “Palm Royale.”
“I don't know if I'll ever be able to make a sweatshirt and jeans again,” she said. “It was truly a gift of work.”
