The real star of The Gilded Age — a series set in 1882 about the conflict between those with new and old fortunes — is the costumes. Kasia Walicka Maimone, a Polish designer, created the lavish, glittering, sometimes over-the-top looks for the cast. Maimone has designed costumes for period films, including The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Capote, but she shines with this show.
The reason? Maimone took inspiration from paintings made during the period; she knew they would portray a heightened sense of reality, exactly what she was looking for. The next step was to sort through images and garments from the 1880s. By season three, she knew the characters, their world, the actors’ bodies, and how to work with the costume-makers, which freed up time for her to dive deeper into historical details and the characters’ emotional journeys. Quick sketches are posted to a board with collages of inspiration, the process becoming an “incredible language” between Maimone and the Gilded Age team.
Taissa Farmiga’s Gladys marries to secure a place in the English peerage wearing a dress so heavy that the actress couldn’t move between takes. A day wedding called for a more conservative gown than an evening ceremony, but the look also reflects Gladys’s guarded emotional state. It took over a month to design the dress and more than six weeks to make it. The long train was based on Consuelo Vanderbilt’s real-life 60-foot train, and the silhouette was drawn from paintings of period weddings.
Bertha, played by Carrie Coon, is desperately trying to belong to high society, yet she also challenges it. Maimone had to design costumes that fit the norms of the period as well as drawing from the latest European fabrics of the time. While Maimone dresses old wealth in deep jewel tones, Bertha wears fresher colors stripped of tradition.
In season three, the lens of The Gilded Age widens to capture Newport’s historically Black neighborhoods. Maimone made sure this world has a distinct look. The design team leaned into a 19th-century fascination with representations of the East in western art, adding rich patterns and prints to the outfits and set design.
Aurora (Kelli O’Hara) is an often-copied Manhattan socialite. She wears slender designs with the fashionable flamboyant embellishments of the 1880s. Her dresses feature narrow shoulders, tight collars, and bodices with central panels that imitate a jacket.
Louisa Jacobson, who plays Marian Brook, had to ask the wardrobe department to take out her dresses at the waist. “I couldn’t sleep on my side for a long time because my ribs were so sore,” she said. But to play a young woman in the 19th century, she is still styled in a corset for season three.
Andrea Martin plays Madame Daskova, a medium who promises to communicate with the dead. The psychic wears dark colors and fur, and unlike the other characters, she is free of headwear. Her outfit, less lavish compared with the other characters’, is a reflection of her class yet is still intricately designed by Maimone.
Dorothy Scott (Audra McDonald) and Athena Trumbo (Jessica Frances Dukes) are members of Newport’s elite Black community. To style these looks, Maimone’s team worked with Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of American history at Rutgers University. The dresses are exaggerated versions of those photographed during the period.
The body-hugging silhouettes were created by designing dresses without a horizontal waist seam; instead, a “cuirass” bodice extends over the hips. Hats, adorned with feathers, flowers, and ribbon, signify the characters’ social status. The more elaborate the hat, the stronger the desire to climb the social ladder.
Ashlie Atkinson portrays Mamie Fish, a real-life socialite known for breaking fashion rules. Her bold personality is reflected in the fabric choices and silhouettes. Atkinson herself has even worn the custom eccentric designs to award shows and events.
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