Seek:  First of all, I love that the show is centered around two women who are at different points in their careers and their lives. 

Costume Designer Kathleen Felix-Hager: Interpreting that through their costumes was very fun. Deborah Vance was very clear to me from the very beginning when I first read the scripts, I could see her in my head. I never wanted her to be a cliche or a caricature. It was super fun to work with the writers and to work with Jean Smart to come up with her signature looks. I think she does have a signature silhouette that she carried - especially in season one - from her stage looks to her everyday looks. We just carried that on through season two. 

Seek: An icon! The onstage look, the offstage look, the kimonos, the sequins! Do you have a favorite Deborah Vance look? I’ve heard you reference the black dress in season 1.

Felix-Hager:  I do love that dress for so many reasons. I think it was an unexpected choice for her. What I love about Deborah Vance is that she can be over the top at times but she has such an exquisite sense of taste to me. She’s never tacky, she's never cheap. She always has a sense of chicness and elegance to her so that black dress was. We've never seen her in a short skirt in season one until that point. She has amazing legs. Even though it was covered up, with that sheer neckline and the sleeves it was still very sexy. I think for a woman of a certain age to still feel sexy and alluring - she commanded so much attention in that scene, even though it was a birthday party for her daughter and it wasn't about her, but she made it about her.

Seek:  Watching Ava’s character flourish is super interesting to watch. Dressing that character, developing her, what would she wear in this moment? Do you have a favorite look that Ava wears?

Felix-Hager:  We talked about that in season one. She comes to interview Deborah and she doesn't anticipate staying in Vegas but she's hired. She has very limited clothes and she does collect pieces along the way. She repeated a lot of looks in season one. Her style was a meld of Hannah's personal style and our two showrunners' personal style. I sort of mashed all of those looks into one person. She’s just a dream to dress. She’s super fun. 

I do love the look in season 2 when she’s in the dressing room with Deborah and she has on that Chanel-esque little tweed and gold dress. And she's like, I don't like this dress. This is horrible. Why are you making me wear it? I knew it was going to be a story point that whatever dress she wears in that dressing room she was going to end up going to the premier party at the end of the season. Which is heartbreaking and tragic that she’s wearing this dress that she doesn’t like but she knows Deborah likes it. She still looks so beautiful in it. She’s sort of offering herself to Deborah like, please love me, I want you to love me. And then she fires her. It was just heartbreaking. I do love that arc of her story. 

Seek:  Chills. For Ava, did you use any of her own clothing or the showrunners’ clothing? Where did you pull from?

Felix-Hager: I did a lot of vintage for her. We used a couple pairs of Hannah’s own jeans. The Doc Martens were hers. The little blue satin bomber jacket that she wears through season one and two. That’s Lucia, our showrunner’s. Jen (Statsky) also contributed some pieces. I sometimes bring my own pieces in. A lot of vintage t-shirts, a lot of vintage sweatshirts. I scoured thrift and vintage and the internet. The Real Real has been a good resource. 

Seek:  Everyone secretly has their own favorite side character and side character outfits. DJ, Deborah’s daughter, looks incredible in season 2. There’s that moment when they’re sitting ringside and she has a red dress with the red blazer thrown over it - that’s one of my favorite looks from season 2.

Felix-Hager: That was really fun. Kaitlin Olson (who plays DJ) we talk about her character being stuck in the ’90s. That was her heyday. She grew up on the road but lives in Vegas so she has a Vegasy sensibility about how she dresses. That was when she felt sexiest and prettiest. She carried that over maybe a little bit too long into her life but I love that character so much. It’s been so much fun. That red outfit is actually shorts and a cutout sleeveless mock turtleneck. That jacket she wore as a cape. I think it's a double breasted blazer but we wore it over her shoulders. Kaitlin herself has the most gorgeous long legs you’ve ever seen in your life. I also love the color so much. Red is such a powerful color on camera. Your eye goes to it immediately. She's the wife of the guy in the ring and she does want some attention. Everything she puts on she just looks amazing in.

Seek:  Some of the other supporting characters on season 2 are starting to have their moments. Megan Stalter for example breaks through with her loud and hilarious and often inappropriate character. How did you mirror the costumes to reflect that?

Felix-Hager: Just like you said, she’s sort of inappropriate and she’s a little bit of a fish out of water. Even though management and entertainment is a little bit looser than a strict business environment, still her costumes reflect how sort of brash and in your face and outside the box she is personally. It’s just another layer upon her character - you know, those wild prints and colors - she’s game for anything. 

Meg is the most fearless actor I've ever worked with. It’s refreshing in that way. She’s game for anything. She loves all those colors. Her favorite and my favorite from season 2 was the pink suit she wore in the finale. You couldn't really tell on camera but the bustier she wore underneath was pleather. That was a really inexpensive suit that I found. Our tailor recut and remade it to fit her perfectly. She loved it. And I loved it. The whole vibe was really fun for me.

Seek:  What advice do you have for women dressing in everyday life?

Felix-Hager: It's important to be and to feel authentic in your wardrobe, right? To feel like you're your best version of yourself, whatever that is. And it doesn't necessarily mean to like follow the latest trends or fashions. You need to figure out what looks good on your body and what feels good on your body. And then just embrace it. There's no right or wrong in personal style or how you present yourself to the world. You can have fun! I think the most important thing is to feel authentic in what you're present yourself to the world in.

Seek: Tell us more about how you got here.

Felix-Hager: I sort of stumbled upon it accidentally. I was in desperate need of a job at one point in my life and I was given the opportunity to work on this film, which I jumped at. Like I said, like say yes to things. Even though I had zero experience, I just did whatever anyone told me to do.

And I just fell in love with it. It was such an amazing learning experience to be able to see the inner workings of a costume department and the many different facets of it. There's obviously the design part. There's the seamstresses, there's the ager dyers. There's being on set. There's so many different opportunities within that visual costume world. I just loved the idea of being able to tell a story through costumes and I just kind of fell madly in love with it. I was always a big reader – I could see things visually in my head. When I read a script I can see it visually. I was able to translate that to what I do. 

And then I just kept working and working and working, and was given the opportunity to design my own thing at one point. Which I said yes to, even though I was terrified. The first thing I designed was a show called Judging Amy. I've been fortunate enough to be on shows that have been beloved. I did VEEP. I feel very blessed and grateful that I've been able to work on shows that people love so much.

Felix-Hager:  I would say yes to things when you’re first starting. It might not be the perfect job at the beginning, or it might not be the exact position where you want to be yet. All of those steps are certainly important and you don't know where they’re going to lead. It might be a connection with a person. You just don’t know where connections are going to happen. 

My advice for people just starting out would be to be open. To take risks. To say yes to something that might seem scary. Even if you don't think you can do the job. It’s kind of the scary thing to do and then you can just say yes. And don’t be afraid to ask questions once you’ve gotten it. Say, “I don't quite understand what you're talking about, could you explain that?” I always appreciate when I'm talking to people I work with and if I have an idea where I’m trying to explain myself they say, “I don't understand” or “that's not clear to me”. It helps us both grow.