Few shows arrive with a visual identity as fully formed – or maybe more… curatedly chaotic – as I Love LA.
The HBO series, written by and starring Rachel Sennott, aspires to be like Sex and the City and Entourage for internet it-girls, following a crew of insecure, culture-agnostic and extremely online twenty-somethings as they navigate friendships, love and influencerdom in Los Angeles. The flutter of a Dior-era Galliano slip dress as Carrie Bradshaw charges toward another dating debacle, the sharp shouldered flick of a power suited Ari Gold… all lives on in the style DNA of I Love LA.
Where Patricia Field captured the distinctive personalities, arcs, and follies of the SATC women with fashion, and Olivia Miles defined a sartorial story of Hollywood ambition and power on Entourage, costume designer Christina Flannery styles I Love LA’s great zillennial crashout. From the moment she signed up for the show with Sennott, Flannery knew she wanted to create a fashion language that lives somewhere between aspiration and emotional realism. “Shows like SATC do a fantastic job of making the friend group feel relatable without overstepping into each other’s worlds,” Flannery shares with Glamour UK.
Having finished work on costume design for The Righteous Gemstones (a highly underrated comedy about a world-famous televangelist family) and Sydney Sweeney’s boxer biopic and Oscar hope Christy, Flannery was keen to show more of what she could do. “Christy was a challenge…to dial things back and simplify,” Flannery explains. “It was something I wanted to do as a designer, because I think it’s important to do things that you believe in. Christy’s story is very public and powerful, and we wanted to give true representation to that.” The film required recreating real clothing from real moments — Flannery worked with the real life Christy Martin, seeing her jackets from pivotal fights and shirts from schools that no longer exist and replicating them in rural Charlotte, North Carolina. “It was archival vintage work, similar to I Love LA, but more based in Appalachian reality,” she says.
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As with any great style-driven show, the costumes in I Love LA began with character. “I started by breaking down their backgrounds,” she says. “As a costume designer, I really love giving characters their own autonomy through clothing. It's a defining thing a viewer can grasp with just an image.”
For Maia, an aspiring and insecure talent manager and LA transplant played by Sennott, Flannery looked to ’90s actresses – Claire Danes, Julia Stiles, Christina Ricci – and blended catalog nostalgia and a contemporary PR-girl vibe. Think: new-gen brands like Gimaguas and Fanci Club, mixed with adorable pieces you’d find in a downtown thrift store and give a silent scream over: a D&G floral bustier dress, a flirty Miss Sixty denim mini, a Jean Paul Gaultier sailor strip crop top combo. Then, some Dilara Findikoglu. (Feel the fantasy!)
Tallulah, Maia’s chaotic best friend, played by Marty Supreme’s Odessa A’zion, references “a lot of 90s riot grrrl vibes. A bit of Tank Girl meets Amyl and the Sniffers,” Flannery says. An unpolished it-girl influencer who relies on gifted clothes and vintage steals: a beat up (and…actually stolen) Balenciaga City bag, an IG grid-worthy Rick Owens leather dress moment (for a funeral). Alani (True Whittaker) exudes the confidence of a nepo baby born to shop: head-to-toe Miu Miu, rare Gaultier.
Los Angeles is both the setting and woven into the wardrobe. Quite literally at times. “The palette and aesthetic spoke to the climate of LA. It's a city where you can wear a big ass jacket at night, and a barely-there crop top during the day,” Flannery says – so there was a lot to play with. She sourced almost entirely within the city, digging through Eastside resale haunts like Bearded Beagle and Worship. Many of the pieces will feel familiar to locals, with IYKYK references: a baseball cap from the zany and iconic Los Angeles institution Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, merch from East Hollywood strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room, a “CYNIC” graphic tee from LA indie shop Fashion Brand Company. Tallulah wears a yellow Wi Spa t-shirt, which is provided to patrons of the iconic Downtown Korean spa while they use services, subtly implying that she stole
Flannery’s grounding principle is staying authentic, articulated through smart vintage pulls – she owned a vintage store prior to being a costume designer, so you can expect that she’s taking note of every button, stitch and skirt fold: “That has always spoken to me.”
But there’s also the practical realities of television. “It’s a season one show, and the hope is that everyone will believe in the project enough to help out. We really called in a lot of favours, and some really amazing brands assisted in bringing the vision to life.” Thankfully, we know now I Love LA will be renewed for a second season.
Mixing eras is key to ensuring the wardrobe doesn’t date too quickly. “The real idea… is that it doesn't time out,” she says. “The best way to really pull that off is to mix vintage, modern and archive together.” Case in point: Maia’s sweet pleated Orseund Iris mini dress, wacky Chopova Lowena skirt, and a black YSL vintage bodysuit she wears in the finale, which they scored for $170 (£126) on The RealReal: “See…accessible!” Maia’s arc, then, is the clearest. “She is going through this massive Saturn return moment,” Flannery says. “We take her from a soft sweet palette to a more carved-out badass that burns everything down.”
Maia is especially rich with references. Flannery cites Cruel Intentions, Jawbreaker, Party Girl, and runways from Claude Montana, Betsey Johnson, and early-2000s Prada. Flannery herself gravitates towards Mimi Rush – the British alt pop star played by Ayo Edebiri – and her wardrobe: “It's very sci-fi adjacent in a way that feels like it jumps from the screen.” Other highlights include the Chloe archival lace set Maia wears in the fifth episode, and the peacocking ERL jacket Charlie rocks in episode four: “Every Sunday, I get overjoyed looking at what we pulled off,” she says.
Collaboration with the cast shaped the aesthetic in subtle ways: Jordan Firstman and his pink cigs and graphic quote t-shirts, True and her Dolce & Gabbana rosary beads, Odessa’s own DIY touches. Leighton Meester – as Maia’s neurotic boss – and her older-millennial styling has its own narrative purpose, too. “Her costuming really leant into the era of Girl Boss,” she says. “It’s as if Blair moved to LA and owned her own PR firm.”
Flannery’s love of vintage is the heartbeat of her work. Whether pulling archival Betsey Johnson from estate sales or scouring 1stDibs and The Way We Wore, the thrill never fades. “It's exciting to find the pieces out there in the world and not recreate them. It’s a high that really hits hard.”
