In “Euphoria,” storytelling doesn’t just happen through writing, music and cinematography, but through its characters’ clothes.
“You can take the opportunity to address every single aspect of a costume to communicate,” Heidi Bivens, the show’s head costume designer, explained over the phone to CNN. “That’s the color, texture, shape, silhouette … how new something looks versus how worn in. You can reveal or conceal someone’s mental state. The nonverbal clues create a mood.”
“Euphoria,” the award-winning HBO show created and principally written by Sam Levinson, unflinchingly portrays an ensemble cast of teenagers grappling with drugs, sexuality and relational hardships in today’s age of social media and perpetual anxiety.
(HBO is owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Its representation of youth culture — of which fashion is a key identifier — has made “a lot of people (feel) seen through the show in a way that they maybe haven’t in others,” Bivens said.
In a new book, “Euphoria Fashion,” the costume designer reveals her process. Its pages include behind-the-scenes breakdowns to conversations with the show’s cast members; there are also Q&As; with fashion designers including Coperni’s Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, as well as historical essays on staples worn by the cast, such as Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars.
Bivens’ work on “Euphoria” has deeply resonated among the show’s fans.
The hashtag #euphoriaoutfits features in thousands of videos shared on TikTok, and accounts for 28.3 million views on the social media platform. Some of these videos show outfit recreations, while others are of young people adopting a character’s style habits, or what they’d wear if they went to “Euphoria High.” Sleuthing viewers have also identified key pieces worn by the cast, and share where people can buy them — or more affordable versions thereof.
The series’ fashion has also influenced brands: In one episode from season two, Maddy (played by Alexa Demie) rifles through the closet of a woman whose kid she babysits, wearing a vintage Blumarine T-shirt.
“Now they’ve brought back those exact silhouettes,” Bivens wrote in the book of a limited edition re-issue of the shirt the Italian fashion brand debuted in 2022. “They even did a campaign with a model who looks like Maddy, shot in a set that looks like Samantha’s closet.”
Blumarine listed the item for sale online as its “Euphoria T-Shirt.”
Fashion’s role in building character arcs
Bivens casts a wide net when building out her characters’ wardrobes. She sources from costume and vintage stores, designers and fashion houses and often borrows pieces from friends, such as the outfit Rue (Zendaya) wears to an end-of-summer party in the show’s pilot episode.
And she says she frequently finds inspiration from people in the real world.
“Some of the best ideas that I worked into the costumes came from real people that I saw while I was out shopping or walking around in New York or Los Angeles,” Bivens explained.
This process is the “method way of building a closet, which is how people build their closets in real life,” she wrote in the book. “You don’t get everything from the same place, and you build it over time.”
In “Euphoria,” clothes are more plot devices and psychological profiles than they are props. Setting the parameters for the psychology of each character “has so much to do with being able to … sit with the characters in your mind and think through each scene and what their motivation is,” Bivens said.
Viewers first meet Jules (Hunter Schafer), a trans character, after she has just moved to East Highland, the fictional California town in which “Euphoria” is set, at the start of season one. Embodying the youthful optimism that comes with a fresh start, Jules desires to “conquer femininity” — as she says in the show’s seventh episode — and appeal to the male gaze by dressing as, according to Bivens, “her own avatar of a cisgender teenage girl.” Conveying this is a wardrobe of bright pastels and tennis skirts, embellished with elements of anime and fantasy.
As the pains of love and trauma leave her increasingly disillusioned, and as she realizes there are other ways to explore her gender identity, Jules slips into a slightly muted, darker and more androgynous wardrobe between the show’s first and second seasons.
“These nonverbal cues — you can constantly refine them as you’re working through the dramatic and emotional arcs of the character,” Bivens said.
Romantic struggles also impact Maddy’s aesthetic. While it begins with colorful matching sets and provocative outfits with cutouts, it evolves over time alongside her emotional maturation and the breakdown of her relationship.
For the look Maddy wears to a winter formal dance at the end of season one (pictured above), Bivens went dark to depict both her “don’t-care attitude” and grief over her breakup, channeling Rose McGowan’s infamous “naked dress” from the 1998 VMAs red carpet, she said.
(Meanwhile, for Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), a character whose relationship with Maddy’s ex blossoms in season two, Bivens’ costume choices reflect an appropriation of Maddy’s former style in seeking his approval.)
And while Kat (Barbie Ferreira) finds confidence in her body and sexuality, she trades retro glasses and collared shirts for body-conscious BDSM-inspired pieces, fit with red and black harnesses, fishnet tights and corsets.
During teen years, young people are discovering who they are, Bivens said. “This is a special time where you get to experiment. You get to play. Keeping with that spirit was really important to me.”
But for the father-son characters Cal and Nate Jacobs (Eric Dane and Jacob Elordi, respectively), who struggle with ideas of sexuality and masculinity, there’s no thinking outside the box. The book’s essay “Bound: Normcore as Fashion Bondage,” by journalist William Van Meter, highlights how a rotation of black, navy, white and brown clothes — staples at any menswear store — exercise self-denial, and the control they need to compensate for how conflicted they feel.
“To be able to use restraint in creative choices and to understand when a character needs to be … more pedestrian and not necessarily be grabbing the audience’s attention with the way they look is equally as relevant as creating costumes that are exciting,” Bivens said.
Bridging the personal and fictional
Bivens takes inspiration from the show’s actors, utilizing some of their personal items and experiences as parts of their characters’ wardrobes.
“For the nature of the subject matter and story, it seemed only natural to me, at times, to be curious about what an actor wanted to bring in collaborating with me for the costumes,” Bivens said. “It’s so important, as a costume designer, to listen to your actors and to respond to any notes they give … (They) made me better all the time.”
In her first meeting with Zendaya, she learned the star kept all her late grandfather’s clothing in memory of him, according to the book.
“We talked about how a garment that came from Rue’s (late) father could be like a security blanket for her,” Bivens wrote. This discussion led to what viewers know as Rue’s burgundy hoodie, which she wears in scenes throughout both seasons — though the detail that it had belonged to her dad isn’t revealed until the season one finale.
The lavender REI long-sleeve top worn by Jules (under a crushed velvet Eckhaus Latta tank) in a scene from the show’s third episode, meanwhile, is one Schafer herself brought or wore to one of her first fittings. Schafer, a trans woman, also brought the Gogo Graham dress Jules wears in the season two finale to a fitting — Bivens chose to use it, she wrote, to highlight the work of a trans designer.
The future of ‘Euphoria’ fashion
Bivens hasn’t yet read the scripts for season three, which she said will premiere in 2024. But she told CNN she hopes to be taking on a more substantial creative role in the show’s development moving forward, and has pitched herself becoming a coproducer.
“I have other aspirations beyond just the costumes. I’d love to direct,” Bivens said. “I’d really love to be able to still be actively involved with the show but find a new way forward so that I’m able to delegate more.”
She has been told there will be about a five-year time jump between the second and third seasons — with the caveat that creator Levinson is “always improving on his ideas.”
“It’s very important to Sam that we don’t repeat ourselves,” Bivens said. “My hope is that the audience will be excited to discover something new in finding out where the characters are now and how their style has evolved and changed. That’s going to be fun for me to figure out.”
“Euphoria Fashion” by Heidi Bivens is available now.