Costume designer Sarah Edwards knew the clothes for Severance had to be “timeless.” Not “timeless” in the way the fashion world often uses the term—to describe something classic and well-made, like a Cartier watch or a Burberry trench coat. Instead, Edwards means void of time itself.
In Severance, the Ben Stiller-created show about employees at a mysterious biotech corporation called Lumon Industries who surgically “sever” their minds with a microchip to ensure that they remember nothing about their top-secret work, time is not really something characters experience. At their company headquarters, there are no calendars on the walls, newspaper headlines to read, computers with internet, or even windows to tell them the weather; and when the microchip is activated, their outside identity and beliefs are all wiped.
So what would someone wear if they had no idea what was currently in style? And—to add another layer—what would someone wear if a company didn’t want them to know what was currently in style? “When we started in season one, there was a lot of talk about where we were in time and place, and Ben felt that we were in no time, no place,” says Edwards. “That’s a very difficult thing to costume.”
So Edwards began to research. She found an IBM employee dress code from the 1960s—since Severance is shot at Bell Labs’ former New Jersey headquarters, a vast mid-century complex built in 1962, it seemed as good a jumping-off point as any. Then, she studied the clothes of extreme religious groups: “We had this idea that it’s cult-like, Lumon,” she says. “They’re oppressed by their clothing.” She then wrote her own Lumon handbook. Men could wear white or light blue shirts and dark suits in navy, black, gray, or taupe, she figured, while women could wear skirts or dresses with pantyhose and sensible heels.
The only problem? It was hard to find clothes plain enough. Most suits and separates sold at department stores today at least attempt to be fashionable or distinctive. So Severance has its own tailor shop to create pieces such as Helly R’s blue knee-length skirts. The suits worn by Mark S. (Adam Scott), on the other hand, are a custom crafted by Brioni to match Edwards’s specific vision. “They were really good about it. It’s a two-button suit with a single vent—nobody had a single vent suit,” Edwards says.
Absolutely not allowed at Lumon? Any sort of labels, logos, or graphics. The elevators have special sensors that detect texts—no messaging from the outside world is allowed in, just as nothing that happens at Lumon is allowed out—meaning any clothing that fell under those aforementioned categories would trip the alarm. Edward and her team manually remove all labels from the clothing of their characters: In one episode, Helly R. (played by Britt Lower) can be seen taking off a tan leather heel, the brand name of which had been scrubbed from the insole.
Whereas most costume designers use clothing to teach the audience about a character—the rebellious daughter of a period drama’s rich merchant will try to wriggle free of a corset; the lead in a 2000s romantic comedy will display her quirkiness with boho style—Edwards has to do the opposite: give them a wardrobe from which you learn nothing at all, because Lumon doesn’t want individuals. Call it “extreme minimalism,” as Edwards does—or just soulless style.
