For costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone, working on “ The Gilded Age ” was a “fantastic” history lesson on the beginnings of contemporary fashion. As she researched the styles of late 19th-century New York through paintings and photographs, she deeply appreciated the complex colors and modern design trends that defined high society during the 1880s. “A lot of the times, I’m being asked if I modernized it too much.
I was like, ‘It’s all there. You just have to pull it out and look for it,'” Maimone said. “[The designs come from] sketches and color palettes from that period with color combinations that are pretty shocking.
” As part of Variety’s Behind the Seams , Maimone opened the doors to her costume studio in Greenpoint, N.Y. to discuss how she crafted the fiercely intricate wardrobe of “The Gilded Age.
” The HBO historical drama tells the classic story of old vs. new money set in a buzzing New York just before the turn of the century. Although Maimone wanted to exemplify the styles of the Gilded Age through the wardrobe, she was not afraid to take creative liberties to ensure an explosive and captivating lineup of costumes.
“We discovered that some of the historical pieces resonate with us and some of them don’t,” Maimone explains. “So if we were just faithful to the history, I think we would have a very different show. That created this lens of what is exciting and what is not exciting.
What I was discovering in that period was that th.
