Why Twin Peaks is still on every fashion designer's mood board today

Audrey Horne

When Showtime and Sky Atlantic announced back in January 2016 that a new series of Twin Peaks was in production, fans of the original series rejoiced. Over 600,000 images from the Nineties original have now been shared and relived on Instagram, meaning that the cult following of the David Lynch-directed drama series is still very much alive in the social media age.

But what was so special about a TV show that was cancelled after just two seasons? It turns out that Twin Peaks mania was as much about the costumes, and the distinct visual world that Lynch and costume designers Patricia Norris and Sara Markowitz created, as about the plot - and the series has since gone down in the fashion history books thanks to its influence.

“Twin Peaks was a weird world and weird is cool,” says Christopher Laverty, the costume historian and editor of Clothes on Film. “If you look at television of the time we were ingesting endless variations on Jessica Fletcher and her patterned silk neck scarves in Murder She Wrote; TV needed to break some boundaries.”

Compared to anything else on the box in 1990, the activities in this surreal logging town and the inquest into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer offered total escapism; a dreamland filled with oddball characters that were simultaneously abstract and relatable.

From the Log Lady and her kooky specs and ratty cardigans, to high school coquette Audrey Horne in her kilts and twinsets, the figures presented were cool because of their uniqueness.

Bay Garnett, contributing fashion editor at British Vogue says it’s no wonder that fashion designers still riff off of the costumes, when the entire industry is built on celebrating distinct characters and their personal looks

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