There’s a good chance that if you’ve watched television, you’ve been drawn to a character’s wardrobe. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably immediately Googled where to find specific pieces — or at least a dupe of them.
Those clothes don’t simply appear from some magical Hollywood closet. Nor are actors typically responsible for shopping for or providing their own wardrobe on set. Instead, there’s a creative force behind every outfit: the costume designer.
Debra McGuire, a renowned costume designer, is known for her work on shows such as “Friends,” “New Girl,” “The Morning Show” and “Freaks and Geeks.” Her film credits include “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Anchorman,” and she has collaborated with directors such as Judd Apatow on multiple projects.
Her expertise extends beyond television and film. McGuire also brought her artistic vision to the stage through the sequins, rhinestones and three-dimensional designs featured in Dolly Parton’s costumes for the grand opening of Dollywood.
McGuire has always viewed costume design through the eyes of a painter, and the proof can be found in every stroke of her work. Over the course of her career, McGuire has explored many creative avenues, weaving together experiences that resemble a richly layered tapestry.
A Curated Art Journey
Like many creatives, McGuire discovered her love of art and design at 7 years old. Around 1958 or 1959, she submitted her drawings to Millie the Model, a comic book series. After seeing her name printed alongside one of her illustrations, she assumed she would become a designer.
“It was really in my DNA to be an artist,” McGuire said. “It’s just something I always gravitated toward as a child.”
She took classes at a museum school when she was young and was particularly drawn to Asian art, which she believes was influenced by her paternal grandmother.
“I think the thing about my life is that it started that way, and then it went through all the versions of that story.”
Growing up near Cleveland, Ohio, McGuire witnessed the impact of the Kent State shootings, which occurred practically in her backyard. The event changed the direction of what she wanted to study in college. Like many people of her generation, she became more aware of politics and the world around her.
McGuire majored in painting and religious studies before earning her elementary and secondary teaching credentials. She was heavily involved in education and wrote her senior thesis on teaching and working in inner-city communities.
Becoming an Entrepreneur
After college, McGuire worked as a painter and fine artist. She also taught in public schools in Oakland, California, where she believes she developed her philosophy of always having a side hustle.
“I think creative people always need to have a side hustle because we never really know which side hustle is going to be the one that supports us,” she said.
That philosophy proved true early in her career.
During a gallery showing in San Francisco, the gallery challenged its artists to work in a different medium. The assignment was jewelry. McGuire created a piece using computer parts and painted Plexiglas.
Among those attending the exhibition was the president of a major San Francisco department store and his assistant, Grace Coddington, who would later become one of the fashion industry’s influential figures.
The department store executive asked McGuire to create a jewelry collection, and one opportunity quickly led to another.
She eventually moved to Manhattan and launched her own jewelry company, building connections and lasting friendships throughout the fashion industry.
One friend, in particular, introduced her to magazine editors, helping land her jewelry on the first cover of the American edition of Elle. As her jewelry business grew, McGuire expanded into clothing as well.
From there, her career took on a momentum of its own. The right doors opened, and she said yes when the opportunities felt right.
While in Paris, she befriended a choreographer and began designing costumes for her theater and dance company. It marked McGuire’s first experience with costume design.
“I didn’t think of it as costume design,” McGuire said. “I thought about it being art that dancers would wear on their bodies.”
Changes and Moves in Los Angeles
After getting married and having her first child, McGuire and her family moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her parents.
At the time, she was considering a career change. She was interested in directing, art direction, production design or costume design, but she wasn’t yet sure which path she would pursue.
Then an executive producer friend invited her to visit a film set and see firsthand how productions operated behind the scenes.
So she did.
Throughout her career, McGuire has had a knack for meeting the right people at the right time and forming genuine friendships.
“I talked my way into my first job. It was just coincidence. I met someone in a coffee shop,” McGuire said. “She was an art director and said, ‘You should come do this movie I’m doing.’ The next thing I knew, that’s what I was doing, and I had a new career.”
Her advice is simple: When you do good work, people will notice. They’ll tell others, which will open to the next opportunity.
Making Her Own Moves
Transitioning into costume design wasn’t a major leap for McGuire. Many of the skills she had developed as a business owner translated naturally into the role.
Over the years, she has worked on large-scale productions that required not only creativity, but also manufacturing expertise, project management and leadership.
She also jokes that she’s “really good at telling other people what to do.”
There is no typical day for a costume designer, especially when juggling multiple productions at once.
At the heart of the job, McGuire sees herself as a storyteller.
“We are storytellers. The kind of collaboration that we can have with writers and directors is really what informs us of where to go and how to be creative.”
That collaboration looks different on every project. Directors communicate in different ways, and costume designers must learn how to interpret their vision.
“I think being intuitive is also a very helpful thing to be as a costume designer because you have to intuit so much of what a director wants,” McGuire said.
That’s something she’s learned to do with repeat collaborator in Judd Apatow.
“Judd is an interesting person. It was amazing to be able to involved in all those early projects. I feel like I learned how to read Judd’s mind at a certain point because I just understood what was required. I’ll tell you that a lot of what was required was anticipating what wasn’t on the page,” McGuire said.
She and the crew would accumulate a lot of “fun, ridiculous things” that they might be able to pull out when needed later on in filming.
“We would have a script, we would break it down, we would have 40 to 50 changes for the main characters. By the time we were done the film, the characters had almost one hundred changes. Because we would anticipate that Judd would want a montage. And the montage would mean changing clothes eight times,” she said.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to the production crews she’s working with, sometimes more than the actors who are in the film.
“That’s where the support comes from when you work on a project. And it’s great to be able to have relationships because if you’re working with a producer or director you’ve worked with before, there’s kind of an unspoken understanding where you can go so far ahead without having to worry about it. And they don’t have to worry about you, which is a great thing for the people who are running direction.”
Whether a project has a large budget or a limited one, the challenge remains the same: tell the story using the resources available.
“I might be working on a film at the same time I’m working on a sitcom — or two or three sitcoms. At the same time, I’m working on episodic television. Everything has a different rhythm. Everything has a completely different way of working,” she said.
While McGuire spent much of her career balancing multiple productions simultaneously, she’s happy to have moved beyond that pace.
That doesn’t mean she’s slowed down.
Today, she is focused on writing, teaching and sharing knowledge she’s gained throughout her time in the industry.
The Magic and Influence of “Friends”
The fashion influence of the pop culture phenomenon “Friends” has never gone out of style. If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve likely seen articles highlighting Rachel Green-inspired outfits, celebrity recreations of iconic looks or lists of fashion trends that have made a comeback thanks to the beloved sitcom.
“I think it never stopped being culturally relevant, interestingly enough,” McGuire said. “I think it’s just the generations as they discover ‘Friends.’ The age got younger and younger and younger. But that never stopped. Every young generation, every four years, there was a rediscovery.”
When McGuire joined “Friends,” it was still early in her career.
“I said, ‘I’m going to do it differently. I’m going to design it like a painting,’” she said.
There were six main characters, each with a distinct color palette. McGuire worked closely with the production designer and set decorator to coordinate colors and create visual balance on screen. She approached the show through the lens of color, shape, value, texture and form.
In those early years, the cast wasn’t especially focused on fashion. Occasionally, McGuire would disagree with an actor about a particular wardrobe choice, but those moments were rare.
She carefully layered patterns, textures and colors, placing one character in flannel, another in chenille and another in black and white paired against burgundy. To keep everything organized, she created her own detailed color-charting system.
“I think that’s when I became a great psychologist,” McGuire said. “You have to use psychology in dealing with actors because they’re never going to understand exactly what you’re doing — they’re interested in how they’re going to look, which is totally understandable. There has to be a way without demanding.”
At the time, McGuire also found herself stepping into a parental role. Jennifer Aniston was just 24 years old when the show began, while McGuire was 42.
“There’s definitely a dance to keep everything moving,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine when I look back at the volume of changes and clothes that we did in a 30-minute sitcom.”
A typical production week moved quickly:
Monday: Scripts arrive (to break down what is necessary)
Wednesday (sometimes Thursday): Fittings and pre-shoots
Friday: Taping night
The pace was relentless. Between six main characters, multiple wardrobe changes and guest stars, the team could easily manage more than 75 costume changes in a single episode cycle.
For McGuire, success came down to silhouette and fit. At a time when oversized clothing dominated television, she intentionally moved in a different direction.
“I had six beautiful humans. Why wouldn’t you want to show the shape of them?” she said. “I started doing body-conscious clothes that didn’t really exist then. A lot of alterations and a lot of work went into changing that silhouette.”
McGuire described the experience as a “playground,” one that continues to influence fashion and pop culture decades later.
Dressing an Icon
“Dolly is just a dream. Dolly is Dolly,” McGuire said with a laugh.
Parton was working on a television show when the designer she had been working with became ill. A producer friend recommended McGuire, and Parton agreed to meet with her.
“I remember meeting Dolly for the first time, and I just couldn’t breathe,” McGuire said. “Sitting in a room with her in her little yellow-and-white gingham dress, her beautiful white skin, her legs crossed — I just couldn’t believe the power of this tiny little woman.”
One of the writers on the sitcom “Heavens to Betsy” was Adriana Trigiani, who would later become a bestselling author. Trigiani and McGuire have remained friends ever since working together on the project.
“Dolly was just game for everything,” McGuire said. “I was lucky that I got to do all her costumes for the opening of Dollywood.”
The collaboration resulted in elaborate looks featuring rhinestones, fringe and intricate embellishments. Several of the designs appear in Dolly Parton’s coffee table book, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, alongside sketches and behind-the-scenes photographs.
“I wanted to do things that were different from what she had done before,” McGuire said. “And we did some really spectacular things.”
For nearly three years, McGuire immersed herself in what she describes as a playground of fantasy and creativity while designing for Parton.
“Dressing the Story: The Art of Costume Design”
Today, McGuire is focused on sharing what she has learned throughout her decades-long career.
While her book explores the craft of costume design, it is equally a story about relationships, collaboration and the people she encountered along the way.
“I think it’s a really important book for young people,” McGuire said. “But in a way, it’s become a dinosaur. The way that we worked was kind of archaic.”
Written alongside her longtime friend Jim Stark, the book unfolds in an interview format. The two have been friends for nearly 60 years.
Stark, a producer known for independent and lower-budget films, was fascinated by the scale of the productions McGuire worked on.
A few years ago, McGuire was working on the $200 million film “Mayday,” starring Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds. For the production, she oversaw the creation of 1,200 Russian military uniforms and costumes for 3,000 background actors dressed in 1987-era clothing.
Knowing Stark would appreciate the scope of the operation, she invited him to visit the set in Budapest during a major weekend shoot.
That visit sparked a series of conversations about her career, her creative process and the path that led her to become one of Hollywood’s most respected costume designers.
Though she is now more selective about the projects she takes on, McGuire continues to approach her work with the same artistic perspective that first drew her to design.
“I came into this work as a painter,” McGuire said. “I’ve never stopped looking at it as a painter.”
McGuire currently teaches at CalArts in Valencia, CA. She also designs for Jennifer Aniston’s character on The Morning Show! You can purchase her book, available now.
You can also learn more about her storied career and portfolio on her website:
Until next time,
Shelby