‘The Undoing’ Costume Designer on That Divisive Green Coat

Before The Undoing viewers were debating the finale, they were divided over that green coat. You know the one. Worn by Nicole Kidman’s character, Grace Fraser, the glorious moss green trench enveloped Fraser as she walked many (many!) miles around the Upper East Side, unraveling as she discovered her husband could in fact be an actual murderer. “It’s interesting how that green coat divided [viewers],” costume designer Signe Sejlund says of hand-made, custom garment. “Some people really don’t like it, and some just love it. I wanted to do something that was a cinematic coat, something that you would remember,” she tells BAZAAR.com.

As one would expect, Sejlund, whose work you may also recognize from Bird Box and The Night Manager, was intentional when choosing the fabric. “I wanted to have something that could kind of blend in and stick out at the same time,” says Sejlund. “I wanted her to be able to have a coat that was almost kind of a shield. I wanted her also to kind of feel that she could disappear in it.”

Also intent on working with “timelessly beautiful” pieces, Sejlund worked an array of cozy-chic outerwear like a crimson red overcoat by Max Mara and dark teal robe coat into the mix, making them just as much of a hot topic as the characters themselves.

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Here, Sejlund breaks down the wardrobe on HBO’s hit miniseries.

What did your mood board or your inspirations look like for the characters on the show?

When I got the job, I knew that Nicole was going to play Grace, so clearly, the moment I start reading the script, I see Nicole. So for me, that’s a huge, big step to actually know who the lead actress is going to be, because then everything is around her. And I will say her costumes and her wardrobe, it’s the center. Grace is the center of this, of the whole series, so she was hugely important. So just knowing it was her, it was really interesting.

Very early, Susanne Bier [director of The Undoing] said to me, “I want her to have big, red, curly hair.” Basically, her natural hair from way back. And so, that given and her beautiful, pale skin, I mean, that was kind of like, “Okay, so what [am I] going to do with this woman?” And then, the whole creative process started inside of me.

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Did you make all these coats by hand, or did you source them from designers?

It’s a mix. The green one, we created. The red one, which I really loved as well, I found that fabric, but there was not enough, because we need, of course, multiple coats. I saw Max Mara had made a coat of that exact fabric, and it was basically out of stock, but we managed to get that many coats from Max Mara. We had multiple coats, and we just cut in them and made them longer and wider, and kind of just tweaked them around Nicole.

All the coats on Nicole are very long—no bomber, no cropped jacket. Why?

It was very intentional. I needed to find her a silhouette that was ongoing through the whole show. And Nicole is so tall and very slim, and she can carry those long coats. It’s so elegant and so classic. I wanted that silhouette to be a part of her identity.

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There were two coats in the last episode that we hadn’t seen before. Tell me about them.

I think it’s four or five months from the fundraiser to the end scene on the bridge. So in reality, you would go from winter into summer or from winter to spring and early summer. Being an Upper East, very wealthy woman, she would have tons of coats. She would have 20 coats, right?

If it was within two weeks or something, she might just have had that one coat. But the time frame is several months, so she needed more coats. And for me, it was another opportunity to just create some more costumes, which is what I love to do.

Totally. The one that really caught me eye was the coat she’s wearing when she’s out early in the morning plotting with Sylvia.

Yeah, that’s actually The Row. It’s teal, dark teal and almost looks like a long cardigan. I thought that at that time, Grace needed something that was more simple, because this time, she really wants to disappear.

In contrast, Sylvia really sticks to this one neutral coat. Why?

That’s one of those classic cashmere Max Mara coats. I wanted Sylvia to be more that cool, classic Upper East woman, which I think she plays really, really well. She’s a New Yorker and she’s a lawyer. She’s a tough lady, right?

I didn’t want anyone around Grace to wear anything that was just remotely close to what she was wearing. I really wanted her to stick out. And then, I just wanted Lily Rabe to look amazing and so she does, and she carries that look really well.

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How did you plan out Grace’s looks, keeping in mind how the story progresses?

What I did was I created a whole big closet for her, but I was not exactly sure when I wanted to use the actual outfits. Luckily, we shot a lot of it continuously. We started with the beginning, and we ended with the ending more or less. So for me, it’s also kind of a way to see how the acting develops. It’s an ongoing process. Some of the decisions I basically made on the day, like, “How was this scene going to play?” So it was reading the next day’s scene and looking at what we already had done.

It’s like when you get dressed yourself. You have a whole closet full of stuff and you wake up and one day you feel like, “Now today, I really need an outfit, so I can kind of disappear.” And another day you wake up and you kind of go, “I really need a pair of high heels and a really fluorescent shirt, because I need something to hold me.” And I think that’s the exact same with Grace.

So, there’s one scene [where] she’s out on the restaurant with Jonathan and their son, and it’s a day after a trial and she wears a purple shirt. A very lavender-purple lavender shirt. And that lavender with the red hair was almost fluorescent. It was amazing to see that, and that was exactly a scene where I thought she needed something that was so strong for that scene. So, in terms of that, yes, but it was not a complete plan from A to Z.

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Let’s talk about other looks in the show. I really love the Givenchy dress on Nicole in the school auction episode.

Basically, and that goes for the green coat as well, I wanted it to be something almost like from a fairy thing. In that Givenchy, she looks almost like a moth. And then the cape she wears on top of that Givenchy, that one I designed myself, but I wanted that to be also something dreamy, mystic. And because I knew that we were going to shoot a scene where she walks outside, at night in that outfit, so I needed to find something that could reflect light in the dark.

And she wears a lot of silks at home. It’s interesting to see what her loungewear is like.

We were joking about this, because it became the loungewear show, because she had a whole big, huge collection. And I think that also has to do about Grace being private. Putting on loungewear, it’s also kind of private and because she’s Grace and where she comes from, of course, it’s really good quality, sexy silk. She had a whole collection of that.

Noma Dumezweni, who plays Haley, wore a lot of edgy court looks. What were your references for that character?

It’s basically inspired both by Japanese and Danish designers, because most Danish and Japanese design do kind of that thing where it’s kind of graphic, and then there’s something that is a little quirky. I was going to go for something that was kind of almost like Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake. An outfit that was super strong and really edgy at the same time. I kept her completely in those colors, with grays, white, and black. And all her jewelry is silver, so she’s kind of cold and graphic. I love Haley’s outfits. She’s such a beautiful woman. She’s so cool and pulls it off really, really well.

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And how about dressing Hugh, considering his whole storyline?

There’s not much you can do, right? I mean, he’s Hugh Grant. [Laughs.] But the thing is, if you dress, I mean, this nice guy from Notting Hill, he would never be able to do it, right? He would never be a murderer. So it was kind of trying to make him kind of really look good and at the same time, just he doesn’t really care what he wears. He doesn’t really care. He actually says it, he doesn’t want to wear a tuxedo. He doesn’t really care about how he looks. It’s only when we go into the trial and when he puts on the suit, he really tries to make an effort.

David Giesbrecht

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HBO

Considering all the reactions to the coats, is there something else that you wish people had paid more attention to in the wardrobe?

[Laughs.] Well, everything that’s under the coat perhaps. But I do think that gets some attention as well. When you know what we actually had, how much we actually shot on those costumes, and how beautiful it looked—I mean, you wanted everything to have much more attention, of course, but clearly an overcoat is an overcoat, and it hides everything else.

But I do think she had some really cool outfits also, other than the coat. I really love her fundraiser outfit with the Givenchy and the cape. I thought that’s beautiful.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Erica Gonzales

Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she’s listening to Lorde right now.