“You Look a Lot Different than Last Summer”
Costume Design on The Summer I Turned Pretty
Over the past few months, I’ve neglected the founding genre of this newsletter, but summer seems the perfect time to return to teen soaps, with one of my favorites in recent years. The Summer I Turned Pretty is an adaptation of Jenny Han’s first YA trilogy, each season more or less following one book. The series’ narrator, Isabel “Belly” Conklin, spends the summer months at a family friend’s house in Cousins Beach: coming into her own desire and that of others, falling in and out of love—basically, experiencing all those big, messy feelings that come between childhood and adulthood. Each episode feels like a Taylor Swift song (and is usually scored with at least one): there are necklaces and sweatshirts given the weight of talismans, there are elaborate Fourth of July parties, there are debutante balls, and there are the most invigorating ship wars I’ve seen since the first Gossip Girl.
And oh yeah, they’re brothers: Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher, Team Bonrad and Team Jelly to the initiated. And because I have that RFK Jr. brain worm, but instead of leading me to an ill-fated and embarrassing presidential run, it causes me to ship couples who will never, ever be endgame, I am solidly Team Jelly.
But really, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The series is costume designed by Jessica Flaherty, who works closely with showrunner Han (a style icon in her own right—Jenny Han office tour when?) to create the right look for its world. Summer is certainly an aesthetic departure from Han’s previous project, the movie adaptations of the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy. The films’ protagonist, Lara Jean Covey, favored a bright, twee style that would look out of place in the easy, pastel world of Cousins Beach.
Indeed, Cousins is a place without time: Flaherty wanted costumes that weren’t chasing fleeting trends or that elusive teenage it factor. As she tells E! News, “Bright purple might be the color of the summer, but we’re doing pastel blues.” The style references for the show cover the seventies, eighties, nineties, and aughts—made accessible with modern pieces from brands like American Eagle, J. Crew, and Urban Outfitters. In interviews with E! and People, Flaherty cites inspirations that range from Baby’s Keds and denim shorts in Dirty Dancing, to Rory’s cozy sweaters on Gilmore Girls, to Conrad’s plaid shirts and shearling jackets in Ordinary People. Together, these varying pieces are made cohesive by the show’s dreamy palette and classic prints—florals, plaids, ginghams, nautical stripes. “[The beach is] soft and it’s untouched by the harsh realities and garishness of high school,” Flaherty explains. “[Summer is] very different than other shows that represent high school kids, where things are a bit sharper and brighter” (E! News).
Flashback to young Belly in 1.5—note the ditsy floral on her overalls
But let’s go back to the start of the series, and where each of our characters begins: Belly is almost sixteen, relatively inexperienced but recently “turned pretty” (with the removal, in teen movie fashion, of her glasses and braces). She is both a swimmer and a volleyball player, so her wardrobe initially prioritizes comfort and sport over aesthetics: baggy T-shirts, shorts, and one-piece swimsuits.
Steven and Jeremiah in 1.3
Belly’s older brother, Steven, is the academic overachiever to Belly’s jock. He wants to go to Princeton, but his family has limited funds to send him, so he’s planning to spend the summer waitering at the local country club. His economic insecurity also factors into his wardrobe: Though Steven loves streetwear, Flaherty was careful to consider which pricier pieces he would invest in (E! News).
Laurel in 1.2
Their mother, Laurel, is recently divorced and attempting to write her next book. She pays little thought to her clothes, choosing easy, functional pieces in “black, cream, navy, and taupe” (E! News)—an appropriately somber departure from the show’s pastel-leaning palette. Her mind is otherwise occupied by a terrible secret, entrusted to her by her best friend, Susannah Fisher.
Susannah in 1.6
Susannah, of course, is the owner of the Cousins house and mother of those two Fisher boys. She keeps everything in her life picture-perfect, from her beautiful home to her colorful vintage-inspired wardrobe. The one thing she can’t control is her own health: she tells no one but Laurel that her cancer has returned, with the hope of having one last unspoiled summer. In Cousins, her go-to outfit is a printed sundress and a pair of slip-on sandals—pieces that seem to give her both the presentation she craves and the ease her diagnosis demands.
Conrad in 1.5
Conrad is Susannah’s older son, his father’s former golden child and Belly’s eternal crush. When the series begins, he’s dropped football and taken up, well, being kind of an asshole. He’s planning to go to Brown in the fall, but his wardrobe already embodies that easy Ivy League prep—rugby shirts, tailored shorts, sweatshirts, but often rendered in darker colors that reflect his mood. Flaherty envisioned Conrad “wear[ing] whatever he pulls out of a dresser drawer that his mom put in there” (E! News)—not unlike fellow floppy-haired dreamboat Nate Archibald. These clothes also hint at another connection to his mother: he’s accidentally discovered her cancer recurrence, and like Laurel, he struggles to fake a happy summer.
Jeremiah in 1.6
Jeremiah is a year younger than Conrad, though infinities apart in personality. He’s never been his father’s favorite, but he’s always been his mother’s “sunshine boy,” masking any inner pain with smiles and flirtation. His sense of play comes through his clothing—usually in a bright printed button-down. At the country club, he has no problem padding around indoors in his lifeguard uniform, with or without shirt.
Taylor and Belly in 1.3
The main cast rounds out with Belly’s best friend, Taylor Jewel: a fellow volleyball player and longtime harborer of a crush on Steven. She’s more experienced with dating than Belly, and more used to being the center of attention, and so her clothing initially reflects this disparity: the pieces tighter or brighter than what Belly would pick.
Season One: The First Summer
Belly in 1.1
Taylor in 1.1
Let’s take, for example, our first scene (1.1): Belly in a “Positive Vibes” T-shirt, a pair of denim cutoffs, mismatched socks, and stacks of beaded necklaces, bracelets, and anklets—the souvenirs of girlhood. Taylor’s cutoffs are shorter than Belly’s, her top a striped halter instead of an oversized T. Her outfit provides both a contrast and a model: she’s there to help Belly pack for Cousins, and to discourage her from bringing the looser clothes and more modest one-piece she wore the summer before. As always, Belly is longing for Conrad’s attention, and this year, Taylor thinks she’ll get it. “You look a lot different than last summer, Belly,” she says.
Conrad and Belly in 1.1
She’s right: At the house, Belly catches the Fisher boys’ eyes right away—Conrad with the tease, “I liked you better with glasses.” (“Too bad,” Belly shoots back. “I like me better without them.”) He’s wearing a blue zip-up hoodie, picking up the color of the house, the hydrangeas that surround it, even his and Belly’s bedrooms inside it.
Jeremiah and Belly in 1.1
The color blue becomes one of two important motifs in the series’ costumes: blue is Cousins, the house, the beach—and of course, the boys. When Jeremiah asks Belly to go down to the ocean to swim, she has no choice but to wear the navy one-piece Taylor didn’t want her to pack—one last gasp of the previous summer and a bracing rush into the one to come.
Susannah in 1.1
Susannah also notes Belly’s maturation, and with it, the show’s second motif: “You’re growing up,” she tells Belly. “You’re in bloom.” Florals are a favorite print for Susannah, in her clothes, in her décor; even her dress in this scene is white with red flowers. And so, flowers in the costumes come to represent a blossoming into adulthood, into first love—and of course, they represent Susannah.
After all, Susannah is the only person who takes Belly’s newfound maturity seriously. She suggests Belly join the Cousins’ debutante ball, but everyone else thinks she is too childish, too feral. The boys want to keep Belly the baby, belly-flopping her into the pool at the first chance, insisting she’s not old enough to join them at a beach bonfire.
Cam and Belly in 1.1—save for the color, Belly’s dress is identical to the one Taylor wears in 1.3
She goes anyway, sneaking out of the house in the “secret weapon” that Taylor threw in her duffel bag. It’s a tight spaghetti-strap dress, its pink in sharp contrast with the soft blues of the house—Taylor’s choice, not Belly’s. Funnily enough, she probably would’ve been more appropriate in her T-shirt and shorts; the other beachgoers are all more casually and warmly dressed than she is. Still, the dress gives her the opportunity to accept a hoodie from Cam, a townie who she once met at a Latin convention. His style leans more alternative than preppy—Flaherty having been inspired by both modern and nineties skate culture (E! News).
Belly in 1.2
Nicole and Belly in 1.2
Shayla and Gigi in 1.2
Belly tries another dress in the next episode, this time purchased on a shopping trip with Susannah and Laurel. It’s a hard swing from Taylor’s tight pink dress: blue gingham with puffy sleeves and blue and yellow flowers so small, Jeremiah mistakes them for pineapples. The look is finished with a fascinator, which Susannah insists all the other debutantes will be wearing to tea. Again, Belly is assuming someone else’s idea of what her style should be; like at the beach, she looks out of place among the other attendees—more juvenile alongside their bolder prints and sleeveless silhouettes.
Susannah and Belly in 1.2
Her most natural outfits are the ones she picks herself: usually some variation on a cute top and jeans, cutoff or not. For her first date with Cam, she chooses a daisy crochet top and a pair of denim cutoffs—flirty yet comfy enough for a couple hours at the drive-in theater. The flowers, of course, are a nod to her new love, the blue to the Fisher boys, who show up halfway through the screening to tease her. And I mean, the movie is Sabrina—a girl in love with two brothers. It seems the universe itself is mocking Belly.
Belly in 1.3
Taylor and Belly in 1.3
Flowers pop up again in episode three, in both the Midsommar flower crowns and brightly printed dress she wears for her birthday. She’s a “vision in florals,” to quote Susannah—thrilled to be turning sixteen, anticipating her presents. Almost all of her gifts are sartorial: Susannah gives her a strand of pearls; Jeremiah, a good luck charm for her driving test; Steven, a Princeton sweatshirt; and Taylor, her first two-piece swimsuit. Only Conrad pretends to have forgotten a present, after seeing Belly open the pearls. Perhaps his own necklace seems insignificant in comparison, even if its pendant—a silver infinity symbol—carries just as much emotional weight. Later that episode, Belly finds the necklace in a drawer and recognizes its significance: Conrad taught her, when they were children, what infinity meant.
Belly in 1.4
When she wears a new necklace in the next episode, its beads forming little daisies, it feels like a purposeful replacement for the one he wouldn’t give her.
Susannah in 1.4
The fourth episode is the midway point of the first season and the turning point between the fantasy of summer and its reality, between Belly’s undeniable pull to Conrad and her amicable feelings for Cam, between Laurel and Conrad’s keeping of Susannah’s diagnosis and the others’ ignorance of it.
Susannah is throwing her annual Fourth of July party, but even she can’t cover all the tension with patriotic bunting and tablecloths. After Belly drinks too many pomegranate margaritas, she accidentally knocks into Susannah and the strawberry-and-blueberry flag cake she’s carrying—it ends up all over the deck. The red of Belly’s and Susannah’s dresses is an allusion not only to the pomegranates and strawberries but also to something more violent. Only the cake stand is broken, but the moment speaks to Susannah’s fragility, the inevitability of her illness.
Blue gingham also gives Belly a Dorothy-like quality among the other debutantes (she’s not in Kansas anymore!).
In episode five, Belly returns to blue, with another gingham dress for the debutantes’ dance rehearsal. This time, the silhouette is a little more revealing, the sleeves off the shoulder. Still, it feels like a continuation of the dress Susannah bought her in episode two: a little more juvenile than the other girls’ outfits, a little bit too fussy for Belly. In blue, she remains torn between the two Fisher boys: Jeremiah, whom she kisses after he confesses his feelings, and Conrad, who can’t quite bring himself to reveal his.
Jeremiah and Belly in 1.7
It’s no surprise, then, that Belly’s favorite debutante gown is as sleek and unfussy as her love life is messy. After Susannah rejects the dress for being “much too simple,” Laurel insists on returning to buy it (1.7). Belly pairs it with Susannah’s strand of pearls and a matching headband—first with Jeremiah on her arm, then Conrad.
Susannah in 1.7
Laurel in 1.7
And yet, the most significant dresses of the night are Susannah’s and Laurel’s—each a departure from their usual style, an assumption of the other’s. Susannah chooses a sleek black column with a slim cutout; Laurel, a red strapless dress with a prominent bow on the back. That night, everyone learns the secret Laurel and Conrad have long held: Susannah is dying and she’s not interested in treatment. Though her boys convince her to try an alternative therapy, the black dress speaks to the certainty of her loss, the red dress to the place Laurel will have to take.
Season Two: The Second Summer
Note the infinity necklace and tiny flowers on Belly’s swimsuit straps (2.1)
The first season ends with a kiss between Belly and Conrad, but the second brings the aftermath of their breakup. In the season opener, Belly dreams herself back to Cousins: she and Conrad are happy, Jeremiah accepts their relationship, and Susannah is alive. In reality, she is struggling through the end of her junior year, Susannah is dead, the boys aren’t speaking, and Laurel is trying to promote a book she could have in no way written and published in less than a year. (Not to put on my production-professional hat, but you’re telling me a publisher is doing a crash schedule for a memoir by a midlist author writing about a woman who is, yes, incredibly important in the context of the show but will mean little to an average reader? I’m already suspending my disbelief about dating siblings!)
Belly and Steven in 2.1
A flashback to Belly and Susannah, both in floral, in 2.1
Laurel goes shopping for a book-promo dress in 2.2.
The motifs of the previous season are distorted in this new world: Belly wears a floral maxi dress to Steven’s graduation, but its flowers are more abstract and spare. Contrast them, for example, with the explosion of flowers we see in a flashback with Susannah: her green floral dress matching the green of the office she keeps for Laurel in Cousins. (Green, I should note, becomes an important color for Laurel this season. She often wears green to promote her memoir, perhaps as a nod to Susannah’s encouragement of her writing.)
A flashback to prom in 2.3
Or, take a look at the prom dress Belly wears on the night she and Conrad break up: its flowers made tangible in lilac silk, her corsage forgotten back in Conrad’s dorm. A departure from florals feels like a departure from both her first love and Susannah herself. With a few exceptions, Belly largely favors stripes this season: less romantic, quite literally straightforward.
Compare this present-day green-and-white-striped sweater (2.1) . . .
. . . with the softer, cozier feel of this one in flashback (2.1).
And compare the harsh coral of this present-day corset top (2.1) . . .
. . . with the pale blue (and tiny flowers) of this cardigan in flashback (2.2).
The colors of the Conklins’ home life have grown harsher, too, more in line with the “sharper” and “brighter” high school palette that Flaherty avoided in Cousins. Even in flashbacks to the fall and winter of Belly and Conrad’s relationship, the colors still retain the soft romanticism of Cousins, albeit in slightly darker shades.
Belly in 2.2
And of course, Conrad’s necklace is gone, replaced by a friendship necklace that Belly shares with Taylor. (You can almost imagine Taylor spitefully buying it after Conrad breaks Belly’s heart.) In fact, all of Belly’s jewelry has been rethought. Says Flaherty, “We’ve lost all the little beads and bracelets and gone into more elegant statement [jewelry]” (People)—a nod to both Belly’s increasing maturity and a loss of playfulness.
Belly in 2.1
Thankfully, we don’t stray from Cousins for long: Belly calls Jeremiah, hoping to reconnect, and learns that Conrad has disappeared from Brown—and returned, as they soon figure out, to the beach house. Naturally, the call is marked with a floral camisole, not unlike ones Belly would wear in the first season. For here comes the central conflict of this summer: the house is now owned by Susannah’s older half sister, Julia, who is planning to sell it. For the kids, losing the house feels like losing Susannah all over again.
Belly and Jeremiah in 2.3
Jeremiah and Conrad in 2.4
Like Belly, the Fisher boys have matured in their style over the past year, by virtue of age and grief. Jeremiah still wears printed button-downs, but the colors and patterns are more “ton[ed] down” (People). Conrad still favors preppy staples, but with “a little bit more of a mature, tailored look” (People). And yet, they’re practically rainbows next to their aunt Julia.
Julia and Skye in 2.4
Susannah in 1.7
Julia favors neutral solids, a representation of both her coldness and her lack of ties to the house. As a child of divorce, she never felt at home in Cousins, with her father’s new wife and daughter. Her own child, Skye, understands both their mother’s resentment and their cousins’ attachment to the house. And so, their style feels like a bridge between family members—their patchwork striped button-down a more muted version of one Susannah wore in the first season.
With the help of Skye, Taylor, Steven, and even Cam, our central three try and fail to stop the sale of the house—and get all sorts of squishy feelings on the way. Belly remains torn between Conrad, who won’t admit he still loves her, and Jeremiah, who is still wounded from her rejection the previous summer.
Belly in 2.6
Conrad and Steven in 2.6
Jeremiah in 2.6
By 2.6, they decide to throw a goodbye party for the house—vaguely retro-themed, almost as a nod to Susannah, but in colors too harsh and silhouettes too tight. Belly skates around the party in an orange crop top and psychedelic-printed bike shorts, her colors tying her to both Conrad and Jeremiah. Inevitably, the party is a disaster, devolving into fights and graffiti and Belly drunk-dialing her mother.
Laurel and Julia in 2.7
It’s Laurel who’s able to finally, magically convince the boys’ father to buy the Cousins house. (He only has to sell their home in Boston to afford it, so I guess it’s commuting from now on!) Laurel, too, is able to soften Julia; suddenly, Julia is in a dark floral dress—maybe not quite Susannah, but certainly more at home in her house.
Belly and Jeremiah in 2.7
But hey, remember how Conrad ran away from Brown? Well, he has to return to campus in time for his biology final. Steven, Jeremiah, and Belly help him pull an all-nighter, then Belly and Jeremiah take him to campus. While Conrad takes his final, they drift to the nearby Finch College, where Jeremiah will be going in the fall. Belly doesn’t have quite the academics for a school like Brown, but Finch, and its volleyball team, is a real possibility for her. She can imagine a life on campus with Jeremiah, even—oops!!—kissing him as Conrad returns from his final. She’s still wearing the Brown sweatshirt Conrad lent her earlier that day and tries to give it back after, noting that she bought a Finch sweatshirt on campus.
Belly in 2.8
And I mean, you don’t have to go to Brown to know the sweatshirts are a metaphor: a choice between two boys, two visions of her life. It’s the debate Jelly-shipping Taylor and Bonrad-shipping Steven have in the very same episode: Steven thinks that Conrad “challenges” Belly, while Taylor argues that he pushes her away. (By my evaluation, Jelly and Bonrad are plagued with same dynamic as Dair and Chair, though thankfully on a more minor scale: Jeremiah and Belly meet each other as friends and equals, while Conrad and Belly forever suffer from withheld feelings and supposed destiny. Though truly, all of these people would benefit from a continued college education and the realization that there are other people, with different DNA, in the world.)
Belly in 2.8
That evening, our threesome are forced to share a motel room on the drive back: Belly in the sole bed, Conrad and Jeremiah sleeping on the floor on either side of her. Her pajamas are a return to the blues and florals of the first season, to the eternal question of the show: Which life should she choose? That night, Conrad confesses his feelings for Belly at Jeremiah’s encouragement; he believes she will rekindle her relationship with Conrad if she knows he still loves her.
Belly and Jeremiah in 2.8
Conrad in 2.8
Belly in 2.8
But the next morning, Belly puts on her Finch sweatshirt over her pajamas and picks a new start with Jeremiah. For the return home, she changes into a variation of her usual summer outfit: a white-and-blue floral top, denim cutoffs. And yet, both boys are in blue, too; while her decision may feel final to Belly, uncertainty lurks underneath.
Well, until season three.
[I’ll be back with my next post and the next show on Thursday, July 4—it’s a good one! Until then, forward this email along to a friend or hit reply to let me know what you think.]
