Hidden tales in Hill House's costumes

The Haunting of Hill House is a show meant to be watched, then rewatched with the Netflix version of a magnifying glass: ample use of the pause button and Reddit. Ever since Hill House premiered in October, bombshell revelations have poured in: There are ghosts lurking in the frames! The five Crain siblings represent the five stages of grief! Essentially, once the twists are unraveled and the scares jumped, then Hill House becomes a 10-episode playground of foreshadowing and clever winks.

Lynn Falconer, the show’s costume designer, knows this better than anyone. The characters' costumes are imbued with significance – and not just the Crains'. This applies to the ghosts, too. Falconer created costumes for Hill House's spectral residents throughout the 20th century, from the house's construction in 1918 to the Crains' stay in the summer of 1992 to the present day.

These are the biggest revelations from our hour-long conversation with Falconer, including the symbolism of Liv’s (Carla Gugino) robes, the ghosts’ backstories, and the potential for a second season.

On the story Liv's robes tell:
“The robes unfolded with the show's story,” Falconer said, adding another bullet point to the ever-growing list of things to pay close attention to in The Haunting of Hill House. Technically, Liv wears peignoirs, a type of sheer negligee that Poppy Hill (Catherine Parker) might have worn while brushing her hair in the 1920s, establishing a further connection between the two women.

Olivia

The robes represent Olivia’s declining mental state. “If you were to line up their actual linear sequence, the robes signal what might be happening to Olivia until she perishes. She starts out in a super rich teal velvet robe, mediates with the green printed robe, and dies in something very light and whisper-thin,” Falconer said.

Falconer revealed a fascinating tidbit about Liv’s ghostly state. “Liv’s red robe is the green robe. It turns red when she becomes a ghost,” Falconer said. The color red connects back to the Red Room, which takes hold of everyone in the house. “It’s also about love. Love and family to me,” she added.

On the surprising connection between Liv and the "Bent Neck Lady:"
Of all the Crains, Nell and Olivia are especially susceptible to to Hill House's deviousness. So, it's fitting that the women's wardrobes align. When Nell travels to Hill House as an adult and changes into a gown, she selects a garment that Olivia had actually worn earlier on in the show.“Olivia wears the Bent Neck Lady’s gown in episode 1, when Hugh comes into bed. That gown becomes Nell’s Bent Neck Lady under-gown,” said Falconer. "Nell is continuing the tragic legacy of Olivia by inhabiting her mother's pieces.”

Nell in her wedding dress

On the show’s most in-demand costumes:
Apparently, fans love Nell’s (Victoria Pedretti) wardrobe — especially her bohemian wedding dress and her long camel coat. “I get an email every day about that wedding dress,” Falconer said. Since the wedding sequence came up suddenly during the show’s shoot, Falconer was unable to design a dress. She and Pedretti ultimately selected a lace gown from Anthropologie’s bridal line, BHLDN.

You’ll have less luck tracking down Nell’s coat. “It’s from my vintage archives,” Falconer revealed. Falconer chose the coat because she senses it has a story of its own. “I don’t know who it belonged to. There were holes in it. It was moth-eaten. But it had a story – you just knew. It almost evokes Anastasia.” Some of Liv's dresses are also from Falconer's personal vintage connection.

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The Haunting of Hill House's fashion designer, Lynn Falconer talks making horror fashionable

Olivia, played by Carla Gugino

If you’re not watching The Haunting of Hill House, you’re probably not a horror person. Because everyone who can tolerate the genre has already binge-watched the new 10-episode Netflix show. And those who are wary of horror probably should stay wary—this isn’t Sabrina-level scary, it’s burrow-into-your-brain-and-stay-there scary. Gone are the days when monsters hiding under your bed are the only source of terror. In 2018, there are still monsters, but we’re also confronted with the effects those monsters have on a person’s psyche—and their family—over time.

But there’s something else other than fear that helps bring the show to life: the clothes.

The show, loosely based on the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, follows Olivia and Hugh Crain as they move their five children (Steven, Shirley, Theo, Luke, and Nell) into an old estate one summer. Time flashes back-and-forth from the Hill House of “then” and the family today, piecing together the events of the past and how that’s impacted their lives as adults. Aging looks is a key tool in separating the two sides of the story, but another factor is what the characters wear. Costume designer Lynn Falconer pulled from early ’90s fashion for the throwback scenes, which means a lot of bucket hats, jeans, and patchwork dresses worn over T-shirts. “1992, to me, is not the best fashion period,” Falconer tells us. “Now, it’s shifting and it’s cool, but back then it was very catalogue—a lot of white and primary colors, Tommy Hilfiger… The ’80s shoulders were still there. It was not a great time period to tell a horror story, so I had to dig a lot deeper to find other essences.”

Viewers might notice that there’s a pretty distinct color difference between the two worlds. The ’90s scenes are warmer, there’s a lot more light and vibrancy to the characters. Modern day, on the other hand, has a morose washed-out appearance; there’s a blue-gray tint that hovers over almost every scene. This is reflected in the clothes as well. Falconer says that she wanted to have that “thread of young and older, something I weaved into the tapestry.” For example, in using the book as a springboard, she assigned the color yellow to Theo and the color red to Nell, themes that follow them throughout the show.

ghostly Poppy 

For the family’s matriarch, Olivia (played beautifully by Carla Gugino), Falconer says she was inspired by Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now and Jessica Lange in The Postman Always Rings Twice. “We wanted to find a balance between a bohemian mother who might’ve gone to the Lilith Fair and this professional cosmopolitan architect.” Everything Olivia wears required research, down to the stunning robes she often wears (“those were actually very ’90s,” Falconer says). She even pulled from her own personal sartorial memory bank. “The high-waisted pants and the leather necklace she wears with the locket, that’s just me… those are things I wore in New York back in the ’90s.”

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