What The White Lotus outfits give away about each character
The acclaimed show’s third season is in full swing, and with it, some of the best costume design on television. What exactly does the holiday wardrobe say about the resort’s guests – and us?
At The White Lotus – television’s most drama-filled, badly behaved and sexed-up resort – things are never what they seem. And try as you might, you can never truly escape who you are, even on holiday. But, as the award-winning television series’ costume designer Alex Bovaird points out, we are nevertheless tantalised by the idea that we can become someone else when we are far away from home.
“You can’t really escape your life, but you can on holiday, and that’s why people live for their holidays and play out certain fantasies through them,” Bovaird explains, on a video call with Vogue Australia from New Orleans, where she is now working on a period drama. “And that’s why maybe they do things a little more daring than they would in their real life. I think it’s the same with their fashion choices.”
If anyone is an expert on holiday dressing, it’s Bovaird. The costume designer has worked on all three seasons of The White Lotus, created by the comedic genius Mike White. This season, streaming now on Binge, guests played by an all-star cast including Carrie Coon, Parker Posey, Aimee Lou Wood and Jason Isaacs have checked into a wellness resort in Thailand, where the intention is finding true equilibrium and peace, or so they all declare. The reality? “Disneyland for rich bohemians from Malibu with their Lululemon yoga pants,” notes one guest, the daughter of a particularly American and potentially nebulously wealthy family. Well, if the Goop fits …
When designing costumes, Bovaird trawled the tagged photos of luxury hotels around the world for inspiration. “You could just put in the hashtag of some swanky resort and then you can have access to everybody’s Instagram selfies, where they’re kind of flexing themselves. They’re putting their best selves forward. So I feel like The White Lotus is based on an Instagram life rather than real life,” says Bovaird. “Because if you go to some of these places in real life, not everyone is dressed to the nines.” After all, over-dressing might actually be the tell that you have something to prove. The cleverest thing about The White Lotus, which each season sees a new batch of guests do their worst in an exotic locale, usually with a rather grim coda, is the show’s unpicking of taste, class and the insecurities engendered from both.
This season, Bovaird sourced everywhere from international luxury brands to vintage and second-hand pieces, a few choice looks from Australian designers including Zimmermann and Alemais, and even some bits picked up from the Chatuchak market in Bangkok. “I think people pick up things for their holidays or they buy them on holiday. And I think people, when they go to Thailand, they’re imagining a slightly more exotic life, and so maybe they’re buying more flamboyant clothes,” muses Bovaird. “Especially when they stay somewhere like
The White Lotus. You’ve gone all out, so you’re not going to just go down to the pool in the hotel robe. You might have packed something just for the occasion.”
Each item of clothing on screen provides insights into people’s personalities and insecurities while abroad. This includes the armloads of Cartier Love bracelets and glittering Valentino mini-dresses worn by three very blonde old school friends – played by the trio of Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb – who cannot stop one-upping each other on holiday. Female friends connect over fashion; there is nothing quite so wonderful as another woman complimenting your look. But they also do so through judgement: “She’s so gorgeous but …”
Then there’s a wealthy American family from the South, led by the wonderful Parker Posey in full kook mode, outfitted in what Bovaird describes as “Southern sophisticate”. This family is deeply committed to having the ‘right’ things, as decreed by their cloistered world. Think preppy polos and matching husband-and-wife gold watches. All of these characters, Bovaird points out, think an inordinate amount about their status and what their clothes signify. “I think they are very conscious of it,” she says.
One of the characters to sit outside this social strata happens to be Bovaird’s favourite to dress this season: Chelsea, played by Sex Education favourite Aimee Lou Wood, who is not of this moneyed, upper-crust world. An effervescent yoga teacher, she has been drifting around the world with her older boyfriend Rick, played by Walton Goggins. Her jangling, crochet-heavy wardrobe reflects this. She wears a pendant with the words ‘stay gold’ around her neck. She definitely picked up her sarongs at a local market.
“Aimee’s clothes are supposed to look like she accumulated them from her travels,” says Bovaird. “This sort of boho Bond girl vibe. The idea is that they are sort of expats, they’ve been expats for years. And so she wears stuff that had been made from Indian saris that she got in Goa, and then stuff from the markets in Bangkok.”
Rick, meanwhile, has an incredible array of lairy ‘holiday’ shirts intended to look like he, too, picked them up in his travels, although some of them Bovaird made for the character specifically. (They bring to mind Theo James’s outrageous Eurotrash two-pieces from the second season of The White Lotus, set in Sicily.)
As Bovaird says, every outfit is deeply considered. Each character requires imagination: “‘Where do they shop? What’s their budget? Who shops for them? How long have they had this stuff?’ And then each scene, ‘Do they care what they look like? Are they trying hard? Did they think about what they were wearing, or did they not think about it at all?’” Bovaird says, laughing. “It’s very overthought, probably too much.”
As for what Chelsea and Rick are really doing at The White Lotus in Thailand, well, like most others, they’re probably seeking escape. Maybe it’s fantasy fulfilment. As Bovaird notes, this is likely why what the characters wear on the show resonates with audiences well beyond the lush confines of a luxurious island resort.
“On holiday, I think there’s just a freedom, and maybe it’s pure potential,” she says. “You’re putting your life on hold. And so that’s what we try and do with the clothes – go out there a little bit. Maybe that’s what people love about the clothes, too, it allows them to be a bit freer and a bit sillier.”
The White Lotus season three is streaming now on Binge.
This story is from the March issue of Vogue Australia, on sale now.
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