Shrinking’s Costume Designer Allyson Fanger Breaks Down ‘Imposter Syndrome’ Engagement Party Looks: ‘I Had a Strong Palette’

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Shrinking's Costume Designer Allyson Fanger Breaks Down 'Imposter Syndrome' Engagement Party Looks: 'I Had a Strong Palette'

Sadly Bernadette Peters couldn't make it. Everything certainly did not go Brian's way at his surprise engagement party in Shrinking's episode 6, "Imposter Syndrome," but it did give costume designer Allyson Fanger a chance to "create a palette" for the ensemble. "I keep all the characters in a certain palette and I try to coordinate with production design and we work together because it gives a nice cohesive feel to the group. Our main cast then all feel relative to one another," she exclusively told Us Weekly. "I think it gives a nice intimacy to the group and it shows their connectivity subtly." In the standout episode, which aired on February 24, Jimmy (Jason Segel) hosts best friend Brian’s (Michael Urie) proposal bash at his house after his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) convinces him to. Other guests included Gaby (Jessica Williams), Sean (Luke Tennie), neighbors Liz (Christa Miller) and Derek (Ted McGinley) and a very high Paul (Harrison Ford). [caption id="attachment_3253025" align="alignnone" width="900"] Luke Tennie, Jason Segel and Harrison Ford[/caption] “Gaby was sort of the accent color, that pop color, and we put it in. The flower arrangements and any kind of decoration in the house all sort of were cohesively in the same palette,” Fanger explained to Us. “It’s not something that you would notice as a viewer necessarily, but I think it permeates and even if you don't recognize it, it's there.” The night, naturally, didn’t go as expected for Brian. (Or Kevin, if it was up to Paul.) Amid Brian’s serenade of “You Are So Beautiful” to boyfriend Charlie (Devin Kawaoka), Jimmy at the piano vomits all over himself from drinking too much. Fanger had to order multiple suits for Segel to wear pre — and post-vomit. “I talked to the director Randall [Keenan Winston]. We always have the director meeting. I'm like, ‘OK you guys, how many times do you wanna do this because we need to have multiples,’” she told Us. “We had four suits for him. And as is typical, we end up never using all four, but we have to have them there because nobody really wants to change and start over that much. So we ended up using, I think maybe we used three. We probably used three.” Jimmy is eventually escorted out of the room by Gaby, whose dress coordinated with his look. “And that also was very deliberate because of the connection that they were forming together,” Fanger noted, referencing their eventual hookup. At the top of episode 7, “Apology Tour,” the aftermath of their night plays out. While Paul is downstairs sleeping clutching a bag of Doritos, Jimmy and Gaby are freaking out upstairs about having sex. Williams, for her part, slipped into a lingerie set while Jimmy wore a shirt — and nothing else — in the morning. [jwplayer wWsrPNpp-zhNYySv2] “We had a lot of choices. Lingerie is another very intimate thing like jeans where we'll go to the actor, ‘What are you comfortable in? What's your brand for this?’ And then we go and get choices and we tried on I think six different sets for her,” Fanger told Us. “She didn't have a lot of insecurity about herself, which is so beautiful. And it makes our process so much easier because even people sometimes with gorgeous bodies don't feel confident. And so that makes it harder.” Shrinking, which was created by Segel, Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence, was officially renewed for season 2 on Thursday, March 9. A new episode drops weekly on Apple TV+ and the season 1 finale airs on March 24. Scroll below for Fanger’s breakdown on how she styled each character in “Imposter Syndrome”:

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Jimmy

"That was a difficult night for him. So he's a little rumpled, but that was a linen two-piece suit. It was a suit. You didn't see the whole body that much, but it was a suit. ... [Jimmy's wardrobe was] a little messy, a little disheveled, but they were still good pieces."

"We use James Perse a lot, which he also really likes. He's very tall, Jason. So we also have to work with what's gonna fit. So James Perse, when he wore the suit in the episode we wanted it to be a suit and we needed it in multiples. So we had to kind of search far and wide for a multiple that was gonna work for that moment at the piano."

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Gaby

"I was very collaborative with her hairdresser. I always send the costume boards to the hair and makeup team before we start shooting an episode so that they know what the cast is wearing so they can compliment." 

"She's that therapist for a new generation. We want her to feel kind of more accessible to a younger audience and group. And also just in life. She needed to feel like life whereas Jimmy was kind of stagnant. And in his neutral palette, it was important because she's lively and full of life and brightness. And so we wanted to really pop her out with the color, which looked amazing on her. We had so much fun doing her fittings ... and we spent a lot of time working on all those looks. And it shows. People are really responding to her look."

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Liz

"Christa likes to bring things in. ... She wore a lot of her own jewelry actually [on the show]. She has really nice jewelry. So she would bring in nice jewelry because we can't always buy. For TV, it doesn't make sense to buy really expensive jewelry."

"She wanted to wear her own Golden Goose sneakers [in episode 6]. And I was like, 'I don't know if Liz would have Golden Goose sneakers. I'm not sure Christa.' And then she was like, 'No one's gonna see 'em, just let me wear 'em.' And then she wore them. And she put her feet up on the table at one point and I was like, 'I love those Golden Goose sneakers on her right now.'"

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Brian

"It was a very big evening [for Brian]. So we wanted him to be suited. He didn't wear the jacket through the whole thing, but definitely when he did the proposal. We wanted to make sure he was ready for a big moment in his life. He also wore my necklace that I'm wearing right now. ... We were in the fitting and I was like, ‘You should grab these pearls, put the pearls on you.’"

"[Michael] thinks a lot about what he's wearing. … We have so much fun in the fitting room. We always play music. They can be long, so we have to make sure they're fun and collaborative and creative and we find those little moments.”

Credit: Courtesy of Apple

Alice

"I think that was a great moment for Alice. She’s feeling more mature and obviously trying to grow up a little bit. So her look was really important. And I think she was the perfect note. It was youthful and yet you could tell she put in the effort to have a moment."

"[We] made sure that we saw her ears by putting her hair up like that. ... I want the characters to feel real and relatable to people [and] to viewers and not like a TV version of a teenage girl. She really looks like a teenage girl in L.A. in all of her outfits. Where she's super casual sometimes,  she's also a soccer player, so she's got sweatpants and her sweat shorts. And then this was a nice moment to make her a dressed-up version of herself. So she really took the time with all those details. Girls, they do have all those earrings all the way up their ears. And I love it. I think it's so beautiful. Those kinds of details just really spell out a character."