Styling ‘The Girls on the Bus’

The new show about four campaign trail reporters brings fashion to the swing states.

I love watching people I worked with in earlier chapters of my life go on to do very cool things. Take my friend Amy Chozick — she made a whole television show!

Amy and I were campaign trail reporters for the Wall Street Journal in 2007 and 2008. Neither one of us had covered politics before when we were thrown into the crowded candidate mix. I was sent to follow Mitt Romney and John McCain while Amy was assigned to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In 2016, she returned to the trail with Clinton as a reporter for the New York Times. Amy wrote a best-selling book about her experience, called Chasing Hillary, which served as inspiration for her new show.

The Girls on the Bus, streaming now on HBO’s Max, tells the story of four fictional campaign trail reporters covering an imaginary Democratic primary. Think: West Wing meets Sex and the City with a dash of The Newsroom. Amy sent me screeners, which Matt and I devoured. Having met on the campaign trail — our first date was a snowy night at the Des Moines airport bar — my husband and I delighted in this nostalgic trip back to the swing states, reminiscing about frantically filing stories, racing to catch the bus, and the steady diet of plastic-wrapped turkey sandwiches.

There is so much to The Girls on the Bus that feels familiar. But what really made my heart sing was hearing Amy talk about the thought she put into the fashion. Each of the four women on her show has a distinct look, representing who she is and the outlet she represents. 

I wrote about the sartorial strategy of The Girls on the Bus for InStyle — I hope you will have a read here. I particularly appreciated Amy’s comments about splurging on an Isabel Marant coat that worked as well as in Iowa as it did in New York. “You need a wardrobe that can span the red and blue states,” she said.

eholmes

A post shared by @eholmes

Below you will find more from the conversations I had for the piece, including Amy’s vision for her characters and how costume designers (and sisters) Claire and Lily Parkinson styled the women accordingly. So many thoughts! Both of these chats have made watching the show all the more satisfying.

The first five episodes of The Girls on the Bus are out now on HBO’s MAX. Episode 5 dropped this week. It was written by Amy and another friend of ours (and former WSJer) Candace Jackson — so good!

PS: In case this email gets cut off, click here to read it in your browser.

First Lady Fashion: So Many Thoughts on Jill Biden’s Inaugural Ensembles

Five Takeaways from AOC’s Diplomatic Dressing

Nikki Haley’s Campaign Trail Style

Styling ‘The Girls on the Bus’

Please note: Both of these conversations have been edited and condensed.

Why did you want fashion to be a part of this story?

Amy Chozick: For one, it was about differentiating the girls. I had no idea how intricate the costume process would be, how every single piece of clothing on every character — not just the main four — is approved by me. Each character had to be so specific to keep them feeling unique to their own backgrounds and stories. 

I also wanted this to be aspirational as well as realistic. I wanted you to pause your TV and be like, “Oh my God, where is Grace’s purse from? Or where do I get Lola’s jacket?” And it all needed to fit in a suitcase. 

What was the process of finding costume designers like?

Amy: You interview a lot of people and they put together a pitch for what they would bring to the show. The two versions we got were: Well, clothes are just an afterthought. They’re married to their job, it’s just going to be super serviceable, whatever, fits in a suitcase and gets the job done. That hurt my soul! [Laughs]

The other version was full-on Sex in the City, Emily in Paris, with tutus — fashion forward. One pitched wild hats. I love that stuff. I would have loved to have a Carrie Bradshaw closet in our show. But did she pack that in a roller bag? Is she schlepping that to the swing states? It was really a challenge. And Lily and Claire managed to strike a really good balance.

How did you connect with The Girls on the Bus team?

Claire Parkinson: [Executive producer] Jason Sokoloff called us and said, “We have this series, I think you would love — it’s contemporary fashion.” But when he said, “This is a political show,” we were a bit like, “Oh…”

There are so many political shows and there is such a uniform. It’s very expected. Then we interviewed with Amy [Chozick] and Rina [Mimoun] and they said they wanted it to be aspirational but still grounded and authentic.

Lily Parkinson: You could tell from the script that there were some extra elements that Amy was bringing from the past that were very exciting, the whole Hunter S. Thompson aspect of it. The script, right away, pulled us in.

Amy said she wanted the pieces to fit into a suitcase. Was that a challenge?

Claire: We definitely talked a lot about the suitcase and how much they could bring, and also that some of them stop in their towns halfway through. We talked about everything feeling grounded and lived in; we didn’t want everything to feel completely new. We definitely repeated a lot of pieces in this, compared to other contemporary shows. It’s very rare to even repeat a pair of shoes on some shows.

Was the restyling aspect fun — or limiting?

Lily: This is actually the perfect type of show. You get to do a little bit of both. You have an excuse to have new events or episodes where they are going to Las Vegas and you can introduce different things. 

But also, Claire and I love repeating. We love being authentic and we really love supporting smaller brands and also vintage because it’s so important.

Claire: Our mother was a stylist before we were born and she always collected vintage; Lily and I very much grew up immersed in it. The film industry is pretty wasteful. People buy lots of things at malls and department stores. We have always asked: “How can we change that?” Our footprint matters as a part of the production.

We try to steer clear of fast fashion, too. We’re always just trying to find the special pieces. We want it to be more unique. 

Let’s talk about each of the characters and their specific influences.

SADIE MCCARTHY

Rising star at the New York Sentinel (inspired by the New York Times); played by Melissa Benoist

Amy’s vision: Inspirations for Sadie were Diane Keaton, Annie Hall, Jane Birkin, menswear, vintage — and tapping into this nostalgia for a bygone era. What does a classic newswoman, or newsman, look like? 

Claire: Sadie is vintage-inspired but also timeless — a little rock-n-roll, a little Annie Hall. She has one vest, two jeans, and her jacket the whole time.

Lily: Like the way Joan Didion packs. You have the things that make you feel comfortable when you’re out of town, but at this point she also really knows what she needs — and it’s a lot of layering. She had tailored pieces, a little bit of menswear and a lot of wool, knits, corduroy, stuff like that. We wanted things that were easy to pack. Honestly, you can put corduroy in your suitcase and it’s going to be fine.

We pulled a lot of women from the 60s and the 70s, strong and confident, with a sense of humor. We did a lot of reds and bright blues and mixed in with these murky vintage colors, which made it fun and a little bit more modern.

We talked to Amy a lot about what she wore on the road and how much she would spend on certain things. She would save up her money and then spend it on something really great, like one coat or a piece she could wear throughout.

Claire: Like her Isabel Marant coat, which actually we did get an Isabel Marant coat for Sadie [as a nod to Amy]. Also, a lot of vintage T-shirts because Sadie could sleep in one and then the next day she wore it under her blazer. 

Sadie’s wardrobe was very mix-and-match. She had a three-piece suit from Kallmeyer, a brand we love here on the Lower East Side, that she wore in many different ways. In one episode, she might wear the vest with the blazer and jeans, and then the next episode she would wear the vest with the T-shirt and the trousers.

Lily: Sadie was always on the go, always rushing and trying to get her articles to her editor. We loved the idea of her just also being a little nonchalant about her wardrobe. Everything could go together. Of all the characters, I think she cared the least [about fashion] when she was on the road. It’s all about the writing for her.

GRACE GORDON GREENE

Seasoned veteran reporter at the Washington Union (similar to the Washington Post); played by Carla Gugino

Amy’s vision: Grace is classy, old enough to know what looks good on her and what travels well. A crisp white shirt, great pants, a silk scarf. I always thought of Andrea Mitchell — she had beautiful Hermès scarves on the trail — and Sofia Coppola.

Lily: Grace was inspired by modern muses. She has been doing this for a long time and is super confident. She knows who she is and what she likes to wear on the road.

Claire: We talked about the chic Parisian woman with the minimalist closet that has some wild cards, more so than a New York woman. Parisian women — Marion Cotillard or Yves Saint Laurent’s muse, Ines de la Fressange — look effortless but not in the same way as Sadie, where it’s thrown together. Grace’s looks were considered head-to-toe, but her pieces were very simple.

There were some exaggerations, too. She might wear a pointy collared blouse, but with jeans and heeled loafers. We wanted her to be very much in neutrals, like black, white, navy, and gray, but with these lime greens and cobalt blues. Her pieces feel very luxurious. She was raised in the business and has an impeccable closet.

Lily: She was very sophisticated in a way that’s also no BS. 

Claire: Even her casual in-the-hotel-room pieces. She wore silk citrine pajamas. It’s not meant to be silly. It’s meant to be: “Oh my God, that’s what you brought?” When I go to Paris, I bring my nice pajamas because I can roll them up and fit them [in my suitcase]. I feel good — and I think that’s it. [Grace is] on the road all the time. That’s the piece that is going to make her feel good when she’s drinking a glass of wine in her room. That’s really, to me, badass.

Lily: She goes on camera with her father a few times and we wanted her to wear something that took up space in the same way that a men’s suit would. Not distracting, but also enough so that she stands out.

Claire: In another scene with her father, Grace is wearing a really stiff white shirt, a kind of Carolina Herrera collar that stands above the suit, almost like a men’s tux shirt. That was a great moment for her character; Grace’s dad had always been in the spotlight and now it was her time to shine. We wanted it to be in a way that Grace would want it, not a stylist offering a million dresses and a million different pieces of jewelry. She wore her classic earrings and a classic poplin shirt and a black suit. Her story didn’t have to be colorful or sexy. It was confident.

KIMBERLYN KENDRICK

Making a name as an on-air reporter at Liberty Direct News (a la Fox News); played by Christina Elmore

Amy’s vision: Kimberlyn is a Reagan Republican conservative. She’s ambitious and trying to pop, so she wears bright colors — as well as colors the other girls don’t wear, like purple. Right when you meet her, she has a big pink suitcase. 

Claire: We didn’t want the typical on-camera reporter aesthetic or color palette. We wanted structured silhouettes that were body conscious but never sexy or revealing — very much composed and considered.

Lily: We originally thought we would do more dresses and then once we got into the fittings, we were really drawn to suits.

Claire: Every single suit she wore was a different cut. If she was wearing a pink one, maybe it was double breasted. And the next episode, she was wearing a red wide-leg suit. [EH note: I loved what Christina Elmore, who plays Kimberlyn, had to say about this when I talked to her for the InStyle piece: “It does hint at the fish-out-of-water feeling that she has on the bus and at her own outlet,” she told me. “As a Black conservative woman from the south, she’s not exactly sure if she fits in any of these worlds, and you can see that in her fashion choices.”]

Lily: There was a monochromatic, head-to-toe look that Kimberlyn did a lot as well. We also did a lot of unusual color combinations, too.

I like the idea that she’s super feminine and she really knows what looks good on her. She is very particular about what she wants to look like and how she wants to appear on screen. She is in control of her image, but at the same time we wanted to have fun with the fact that she is still pretty young. She knows what’s trendy and she is clued in, just the conservative side of trends. 

We talked a little bit more with Christina about what she wears when she’s not in front of the camera. That took us a little bit longer to find.

Claire: We were continuously looking for that throughout the season, because it’s not so obvious at the start. We did things that were very opposite of what she would wear when she was in the spotlight — she would never, for example, wear a boxy sweater on camera with a slim-legged pant. But she would pack that for weekend wear. Throughout the season, she was unraveling a little bit, too.

Lily: She is still very aware of her appearance, but where do you find those little moments, to show those changes in subtle ways? As the season went on, we started to have a little bit more fun with the shapes that she was wearing, slightly more asymmetrical stuff and bolder colors.

LOLA RAHAII

Gen Z influencer, new to covering politics; played by Natasha Benham

Amy’s vision: Lola was so fun, so colorful, unabashedly sex positive and body positive. She is completely her own person. Everything she is wearing says that she could care less about being part of the establishment. 

Claire: Lola was so eclectic, bright, and quirky, inspired by so many different things, from punk to 90s to Y2K. She’s obviously a Gen Z. I am such a millennial, we all dress the same, and now I’m like: This generation is confident in being uniquely themselves! Every look of Lola’s is very unexpected and very much pieced together from what she had in her suitcase. We wanted it to be a lot of fun with fluffy hats, animal prints, neon, and ironic t-shirts.

Lily: She was definitely all over the board. What she felt like wearing that day only had to do with what she felt like wearing, it didn’t have to do with the agenda.

Claire: Lola doesn’t change who she is for the campaign trail. Maybe towards the end — when she’s trying a little bit, to be taken more seriously? But then she realizes that’s not authentic to who she is and she quickly resorts back to who she is. 

Lily: She is an influencer and we liked the idea of people sending her things. We talked about that in the beginning, that she would be gifted something or she would have to wear something in a TikTok video. 

Claire: She was also supporting LGBTQ+ designers and indie designers, BIPOC designers, body positivity. We wanted her to be the one who considers all of those things as she progresses and decides who she supports. She knows that her TikTok is watched by many, so she’s conscious of how she is presenting herself in that way — more than the other because that world is so foreign to them.

My thanks to Amy, Claire, and Lily! You can find them on Instagram at @AmyChozick, @ClaireDille, and @LilyDille. Make sure to check Amy’s Insta every Thursday, when a new episode drops — I’ve loved her BTS looks.

The Girls on the Bus is streaming now on HBO’s Max. If you are watching, please click below and let me know what you think in the comments! I’ve been waiting eagerly to discuss this with you all.

(All photos via Warner Bros / The Girls on the Bus)