Daisy Jones and the Six’s Costume Designer Has Tips For Your Halloween Looks

Watching the stylish, soapy squabbling at the center of Daisy Jones and the Six, the new Prime Video series adapted from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel, it’s hard not to imagine dozens of Daisys roaming the streets come October. When producer Lauren Neustadter suggested this to the show’s costume designer Denise Wingate , Wingate was incredulous: “Shut up. No one will be dressing like Daisy for Halloween. That’s crazy.”

But given the show’s popularity, Wingate has a few tips for anyone making early plans. “All they need to do is get a long coat with fur cuffs and collar, short-shorts, and knee-high boots. That’s the perfect look,” she tells Vanity Fair over Zoom. Dressing the real Daisy Jones, though, was slightly more complicated.

Luckily, Wingate—who was brought up in Los Angeles and spent time as a stylist for the Bangles—was up for the task. “Being on the road with the band, traveling in a tour bus for 13 months straight, living out of a hotel, and having to do all the costumes and sew stuff on the bus,” Wingate explains, “I just felt like I just knew that world.”

The one wrinkle was Daisy’s scale. The show’s second day of shooting alone called for 56 outfit changes—a massive undertaking the likes of which Wingate hadn’t encountered since she worked on Melrose Place in the 1990s. “I always said that I would never do television again,” she says, explaining that she viewed Daisy Jones as “a 10-hour movie.”

To prepare, Wingate made extensive moodboards for each character—pinning the free-flowing style of Linda Rondstadt and Janis Joplin for lead singer Daisy (Riley Keough); the more androgynous looks of Joan Jett and Suzi Quatro for keyboardist Karen (Suki Waterhouse); and a boho chic mom-turned-sultry Bianca Jagger vision for Camila (Camila Morrone), the band’s photographer and Billy’s (Sam Claflin) wife. Though much has been made about the similarities between the series and the real story of Fleetwood Mac, Wingate says Keough was reluctant to all-out channel Stevie Nicks. “I’m not going to be witchy with a top hat and scarves,” she apparently told the designer.

Wingate vowed to be faithful to some of the novel’s design elements—Karen’s penchant for turtlenecks, for instance, and Daisy’s choice to wear a men’s button-down in her first meeting with the band. But other pieces presented logistical hurdles. The rows of bangles that adorn Daisy’s arms in the book? Not possible; their clanging would be too loud. More glitter and sparkle was added so the actors would stand out against matte-colored curtains onstage. Drummer Warren often performs wearing just a vest because actor Sebastian Chacon couldn’t fully drum when encumbered by sleeves. “If you ever see him in a long-sleeved shirt in the show, it was only because he’s got tattoos all over and we didn’t have time to cover the tattoos,” Wingate says.

All of the sprawling series’s biggest costume setpieces—from the Aurora album cover to an all-out disco—were also guided by Wingate’s love of psychology. “I never went to fashion school,” she says. “I was a psychology major. I’m interested in why somebody wears something—[Daisy] using the coats as armor when she’s with Billy,” for example. She’s found this way of thinking to be an offscreen asset as well. “Put it this way, it helps me when I’m dealing with actors,” Wingate says. “You have to be able to listen to what actors are saying. If they don’t like it in the fitting room, they’re not going to like it later.”

Taking inspiration from projects like Bridgerton and Django Unchained, which evoke their respective time periods without overly dogmatic about accuracy, Wingate merged past, present, and future in her styling. She mixed ‘70s-era garb, off-the-rack Free People, and vintage clothing, such as Daisy’s 1920s kimono and 1930s crochet concert dress—pieces so old they had to be held together with tape to survive filming. 

Just as Daisy Jones and the Six disbanded in dramatic fashion, so too did Wingate from the project. While filming the show’s final scenes in Greece, she fell down a steep set of stairs on the island of Hydra. “That was a disaster,” she says. “I broke my ankle in two places and tore three ligaments. So I was in a wheelchair. I kept saying to the producers, ‘I’m going to finish this limping to the finish line.’ And they were like, ‘Well, be careful what you wish for.’”

Showrunner Will Graham tells VF, “There was something about watching Denise with her crutches get people in their flowing caftans and their 1970s Greek clothes. It was like watching a warrior at the end of a very long battle.”

That analogy resonates with the costume designer, but she’d be happy to suit up again all the same. “The blood, sweat, tears, broken bones—it was all worth it. It was just the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I have to say, after this, I can do anything. So I’m feeling good about myself,” she says—adding, with a smile, “I can walk again.”