Interview with Melina Root & Rachel Bloom

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Costume Designer Melina Root and Co-Creator, Star, Writer, and Executive Producer Rachel Bloom

 

Can you walk us through your collaborative process on making the costumes? Do you two discuss ideas based on the script before sketches are made? How many ‘drafts’ of a design do you typically go through?

 

Rachel Bloom: On my end of things, we have an initial meeting in which we discuss concepts based on the script. A sketch will come in and Aline Brosh McKenna [Showrunner, Co-Creator and EP] and I will take a look at it before going forward with making the actual costume. Melina can speak about the process way more in depth than I can!

 

Melina Root: I begin with a script breakdown and any research that's needed for new costumes and characters. Rachel and Aline answer these questions, then we go through a series of meetings where I either present mood boards or sketches and we narrow things down to decide on a direction. Our joint creative process is very fluid - things change rapidly and often- until the build process starts. With costumes, I aim to support the actors' character work, as well as the physical demands of their movements. Once we've arrived at something that works in the fitting room - I send the photos to Aline for approval.

 

What musical number was the biggest challenge to design for and/or wear and perform in for Season One?

 

RB: For how insane our costumes can be they are all shockingly comfortable and dance-able. The biggest challenge for me is always dancing in heels - the "Sex with a Stranger" stripper heels were a fun little challenge.

 

Bloom in said stripper heels; courtesy of CW
 

MR: Yes I would say Rachel was a real trooper with those shoes! We now use dance shoes or sneakers for most musical numbers.

I find the most difficult part of any number is to find the right tone and to figure out the transition from reality to fantasy. Since we don't do parodies, I try to extract meaning from our inspiration, and then mash it up into our own singular style. "I Give Good Parent" was challenging because I designed that prim blue dress with pearls and sensible heels to appeal to Josh's parents' sense of propriety - Rebecca presenting herself as a Harvard educated "good girl" - but what was the fantastical counterpoint? So I asked Rachel "what would someone like Nicki Minaj do?" and that's how we ending up with her in a turkey bra and panties, sexy dancing Puritans and Josh's mom a wearing fur coat and a gold grille.

Bloom's "Good Girl" Thanksgiving look

 

Dancing Pilgrims and Bloom as a turkey in "I Give Good Parent" Thanksgiving musical number; courtesy of CW

Melina, you’ve described Rebecca Bunch’s look as a little “off” –she has the money to dress well, but she doesn’t know her own style. How do you translate this onscreen? Do we see her fashion sense change at all in Season Two?

RB: Just want to say that the second I met Melina and she showed me her ideas for Rebecca's wardrobe I knew it was meant to be.

MR: Rebecca Bunch was a great student and a very successful lawyer- other than that she is a work in progress. Hopefully her clothes reflect that she's all over the place. We originally discussed that she worked with a personal shopper in a high end department store who just picked out appropriate lawyer clothes. Her West Covina/SoCal look is a blend of those clothes with random mall shopping, and looks borrowed from Heather or Valencia. Her sartorial journey continues in the 2nd season...and she will keep cycling through fashion trends - both in reality and fantasy - until she's comfortable in her own skin and her clothes don't wear her.

Your team is turning out elaborate, large-scale musical numbers on a weekly basis. How do you both handle the pace of the show? Does the costuming process begin before production starts?

RB: On my end, I use up every piece of free time I have to work on the show, be it songwriting, editing or working on outlines.

MR: I have an amazing team and very supportive producers, and of course, Rachel - who's fearless! So even though it's exhausting, it's really creatively rewarding. We are always shooting an episode and prepping another, so even though I try to complete one before we start the next - we're always backed up - it's costumes, one hour at a time.

Which character is the most fun to dress? 

MR: Rebecca - she's the chameleon.

Do you have a favorite costume or musical number from Season One?

RB: I just love what Melina did with the number "I Give Good Parent." That turkey bra, the pilgrim costumes, the feather shoes= brilliant.

MR: "Settle For Me" - I just love the song, the dancing, the dark romance.

Santino Fontana and Bloom in "Settle for Me" musical number; courtesy of CW