Cate Adair on Desperate Housewives

 

 

Interview with Cate Adair – costume designer on Desperate Housewives in conjunction with the release of Desperate Housewives series 2 now out on DVD

 

 

 

Cate

 

“I trained in England and trained classically and I had a wonderful professor who said ‘you always start with what’s on the page’.

 

Mark (Cherry) and his writers have a wonderful ability to tell me so much about the characters with what they put on the page.”

 

Marc Cherry (Director)

 

“She (Cate) really helps to find these characters every single week. The clothes she puts them in, the looks she gives them – it’s a huge part of what America tunes in for.”

 

Cate

 

“One of the lovely pieces about my job is that they’re all so different and so the shopping challenges and sketching and the building and making and the designs – all of these challenges change constantly.

 

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Nicolette Sheridan (Edie)

 

“The most fun about dressing Edie is that Cate and I will go out shopping together and maybe stop and have a Margarita along the way.”

 

Cate reveals that Nicolette said she’d really like a polka dot dress for Edie and so Cate bought some polka dot fabric, did some sketches for her and as Nicolette reveals, she “whipped together the most fabulous form-fitting, flirty polka dot number.”

 

Cate

 

Speaking of the dress that Edie wore in the Valentine’s day episode, “I love dressing Edie. How could you not do a red dress for Edie on Valentine’s Day – it just makes sense. I asked the work room at Universal to do this in one day – they did a remarkable job.”

 

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On dressing Gabrielle…….

 

“There are pieces that just speak to you for the character and I just stop and go ‘that is absolutely, quintessentially Gabrielle’”.

 

For the scene in which Gabrielle goes to visit Carlos in prison, Cate used a milliner called Louise Green and Charles David shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

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Felicity Huffman (Lynette)

 

“I was really involved in the first series of the dressing of Lynette because I’m a mum and I know that you wear your big pants because you haven’t gone back to your pre-pregnancy weight and then this year when I went back to work, Cate said, ‘alright, now let’s dress you up’”

 

 

Cate

 

“I said to Felicity, ‘let’s make you glamouress, let’s make it strong, let’s make it determined and let’s make it beautiful. Of course they didn’t tell me at the beginning of the season that there would be a whole storyline about her not dressing very well…When that storyline came up, about her suits being a little tired, we realised that the only way to go was to introduce another colour (into her wardrobe) and we brainstormed a bunch of things. I don’t know if it was she who came up with white or I did but between us we both knew it was what we needed to do.

 

We went running onto the set – we found out how many hours we had. I was on the phone, driving into Beverley Hills calling everybody we knew saying, that we needed a white suit and as I was pulling into Beverley Hills, Leo at Emporio Armani called me and said, ‘I think I may have what you’re looking for’. ..They pulled Felicity off set during a lighting set up, had the tailor standing by. We through her into the outfit – it’s the only piece all season we didn’t alter on anybody – it’s the only piece of its kind that literally she put it on, she did a spin and looked at herself in the mirror of her trailor.

 

We decided to do the red underneath because we wanted the maximum contrast and Felicity said, ‘Cate, this is it’ and less than an hour later she had it on camera.”

 

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Cate on dressing Teri Hatcher (Susan)

 

“Who knew that there were so many tank tops. I honestly didn’t until I discovered the character of Susan and wanted something that was sexy, practical, something that looked like someone who could be at home at their artist’s table and then leap in the car and go off and still look cute and together.

 

The dress that Teri wore in the scene where she is going to marry a friend of Edie’s in order to get money for her operation is by Diane Von Furstenburg.

 

“I found it (the dress) quite early on in the season, I loved the colours – it had beautiful smoky colours that look so great on Teri. I had it hidden away and then they came up with this scene so it was perfect.”

 

Teri on Cate

 

“The thing that makes Cate so great is her ability to bring out the arty and quirky side of Susan with her wardrobe”

 

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Cate on Bree (Marcia Cross)

 

When I first started working with Marcia, a lot of her look came out of the character’s need to try and ‘do it right’. Thinking ‘if I put on a tidy shirt on and the nice v-neck sweater and the sensible skirt, all will be well with the world and the world won’t fall apart.’”

 

Bree is definitely crisp, although she’s been a little more frayed around the edges this season. Poor Bree, she’s been through an awful lot. 

 

Marcia

 

“I’d say it’s a collaboration (between us), with Cate having the talent and me having the vague ideas and she solidifies them into reality.”

 

On the scene in which George dies…

 

Marcia

 

“In the George dying scene, I wanted to wear white and I wanted to be like the Angel of Death. She searched high and low to get me the perfect dress.”

 

Cate

 

“We found this wonderful Dina Parrell dress and the fact that it tied at the back with the chiffon pieces that moved was just right.

 

On the scene in which Bree gets locked in the shopping mall after hours….

 

Cate

 

“The director for this particular episode loves green and loves green on Marcia, with her red hair. She and I both had the idea of a sort of grown-up Alice in Wonderland – lost in the department store in the middle of the night. When the dress was really close to being finished, I realised I wanted it to sparkle. I called up Swarovski and they fed-exed two me a whole battery of crystals in different sizes and then we hand-glued all these little crystals onto the skirt and this is just see-through enough that you can see them twinkling underneath.

 

Marcia

 

“This is just an example of how she will go to any length to find the right thing to wear.”

 

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Cate

 

“If I’m able to inspire people to look at themselves differently, to dress in a stylish, sexy, upbeat different sort of way then I’m happy. They (women) don’t have to look at a line of a wall and say I’ve stepped over the boundaries of being 30 or 40. It isn’t just Rodeo (Drive), I go to K-Mart, I go to Target and I love second-second stores and we do hit the sales racks.

 

I hope in that regard we inspire people to go out and have fun with how they dress. Mark’s created an amazing world in Wisteria Lane and working within that world I think is the most interesting challenge.”

 

 

Images: (c) Buena Vista Home Entertainement, inc.