Taking on the project on the heels of costuming Issa Rae’s Insecure, Turini says she’d just written “costume designing a ‘60s period piece” as a goal in her journal on New Year’s Eve when Har’el approached her about Lady in the Lake by way of an Instagram DM. Relocating to Maryland to film, Turini spent over eight months breaking down 1960s style and the birth of futurism through the lens of Maddie and Cleo. (She later put her research to use for a second time to outfit Beyoncé’s also very futuristic Renaissance Tour, in what Turini calls a “full circle” moment.) For Lady in the Lake, a show loosely inspired by the real 1969 deaths of Esther Lebowitz and Shirley Parker, the costumer and stylist took an approach much more rooted in realism. “In the show, all those styles—especially in Maddie’s world—were new to women, and their idea of futuristic fashion was very specific,” she says.
For Turini and Har’el, it wasn’t enough to call it a day at shift dresses and raised hemlines, nor to solely source every era-relevant magazine for costume reference (though for Turini, the Ebony Fashion Fair certainly was a starting point). “I wanted to know what someone in Baltimore would be wearing,” Turini says. “They could be reading a fashion magazine, but ultimately, it’s a little bit more rooted in reality.” For a more accurate picture of what Maddie and Cleo would have looked like, Turini went out into the community, looking at images of old night clubs, asking questions about Baltimore’s betting system (a key story plot line), or finding out what people wore to horse races.
Turini also found inspiration from being surrounded by people on set with ties to the city—Ingram herself was raised in Baltimore, while Portman’s family emigrated to the area in the 1800s. “My crew was primarily from Baltimore, which I loved,” Turini said. “And because they were born and raised Baltimoreans—and for the most part my entire department was Black—they would bring in photos of their grandfather or photos of their uncle, and that also found a place on our moodboards a lot.”
Courtesy of Apple