“Ted Lasso” is one of the best new shows of the season. Created by “Modern Family” head Bill Lawrence and its star Jason Sudeikis, small-time football coach Ted Lasso is hired to coach a professional soccer team in England, despite having no experience coaching soccer.
Jacky Levy, the show’s costume designer, describes the meticulous process of creating three unique versions of authentic kit for the players. Not only do the costumes have to be believable, but they have to specifically represent each character’s personality, as do Rebecca’s (Hannah Waddingham) pastel suits in “making her look confident, powerful, chic, and sophisticated.”
On the challenges of design:
as much as a challenge as period pieces are because everyone has a view and an opinion. it’s a challenge to please everyone. the first thing is definitely reading the script. it can be sourcing from all sorts of places like charity shops, higher fashion shops and putting them together.
if there’s a character who is financially challenged, you have to make the clothes look old and worn. it sounds easy, but you buy new and make them look old from all sorts of processing. you don’t just buy old clothes. it’s all very creative.
On dressig the team:
the footballers have three completely different kits. there’s a home kit and there’s an embroidered patch on the breast. then there’s two fictional sponsors that need to be added. then it’s names and numbers. it’s quite a process to get it made. then there’s a training kit for practice and an away kit which is orange. it all has to be printed. and each character has doubles, so there’s a lot that need to be printed and embroidered. we tried to make it as authentic as possible. football fans are very very particular and obviously very knowledgeable about their team’s kit.
On Rebecca’s dresses and suits:
it was a conscious decision [to move from dresses to suits] . we wanted her to look confident and chic. hannah, who plays rebecca, looks amazing in pastels.
