Meet Donna Zakowska: the Award-Winning Costume Designer of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Donna Zakowska’s Road to Mrs. Maisel

Donna Zakowska is certainly blowing up the internet. One thing that is readily evident in the vibrant world of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, is Donna Zakowska’s love of color. Her use of vibrant hues sets an almost phantasmagoric tone to the main storyline – a proverbial dream ballet of chroma. Her background as a painter and a dancer plays an undeniable role in her facility with the medium. As she mused in a recent interview with NPR, “I think… (my background) sort of evolved into costume design. You know, the idea of color moving in space.” Notably, she cut her teeth on grandiose theatrical endeavors such as the Big Apple Circus and a tour with Mick Jagger – costume designs that leaned heavily on her flair for the dramatic and color savvy. Her work on the mini series John Adams (HBO) earned her first Emmy, and the experience honed her talents with period design.

photo: Jerusalem Greer

The Characters of Mrs. Maisel & Dressing the Part

Her dynamic use of costuming is certainly not lost on the actors with whom she works. Rachel Brosnahan (young comic Midge Maisel) recognizes how “color and shape and texture can tell a story just as efficiently as the way the camera moves, or the dialogue.” She muses, “These costumes change the way I move and breathe and walk and talk, the way I hold my head. I don’t feel complete until I look in the mirror and I have the full costume on and hair and makeup exactly right. Then I feel like I can just step in and do the acting part.”

photo: Sarah Shatz

The show is also innovating how “older” women are being dressed. Zakowska doesn’t fall into the clichéd trope of dressing women of a certain age in ill-fitting or passé fashions. Midge’s mother Rose (Marin Hinkle) came from money and was educated in Paris, so that would explain her chic sense of style and impeccable taste. With Zakowska’s deft hand, we have seen her fashion sense evolve from “mother in Chanel” to a bit more avant garde.

photo: Amazon Studios

The men of the show are also dressed to the nines. “I love designing mens clothing. All of the men’s clothing are designed and built – the shirts are made – everything. Although slightly more subtle, just as much effort is put into the men’s clothing.”

The Costumes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

When COVID put the world on pause, Zakowska was not content to sit on her laurels. She decided to pull back the curtain and let us in on the magnitude and scope of the project. Thus Madly Marvelous: The Costumes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was born. However, the scope of the book proved likewise daunting. Zakowska had to pour over 150,000 images to select the perfect ones. She meticulously sifted through her sketches and photographed them – purposefully selecting examples that were not showcased elsewhere online.

Zakowska’s Dance with Design

Zakowska’s creative process starts by combining different swatches of colors together until she begins to see the “rhythm” that drives the overall design. This rhythm is built upon by her acute instinct as an artist. With the book, she endeavors to convey what an in-depth journey the costuming process is. “Having had a dance background … rhythm is what it’s all about for me — the rhythm of the color and the rhythm of the texture.”

photo: Amazon Studios

Zakowska begins with research and then lets the colors tell the story. But as with so many meaningful journeys, she knows it is important not to decide where she is going before she starts. Her philosophy is, “You can have a sense of the direction, but you have to be open because that is what gives the clothes a life and freshness.” To that end, there is a historical zeitgeist that operates on so many levels. There isn’t a great span of time that passes in the show, but she has found subtle changes in wardrobe that mirror Midge’s journey and character development.  Before filming, Zakowska was aware of the period but until she started her work on the show, she didn’t quite realize how amazing the period of ’59 -’60 was, and how it was arguably the height of fashion for women. The period was after the war so there was creativity and originality abound.  Zakowska likens this evolution to a flower gradually opening – and it is no less beautiful to watch onscreen.

photo: Amazon Studios

Color and Character: A Wardrobe Evolution

The color palette of the show is closely tied to its characters’ emotional states. Their moods and their journeys are inherently reflected in what they wear. Zakowska feels especially connected with Midge’s emotional evolution, and the character’s wardrobe conveys the complex levels of her consideration and care. Like building a symphony, what starts as an idea progresses into a note (or in this case a color swatch) and further erupts into a concert of color. Her infamous wall of swatches spans into the hundreds per hue. She insists that one has to go through hundreds of swatches of green to get the RIGHT shade of green. Her love of color is also reflected in many of the book’s chapters:

• The Color Pink
• Coats of Many Colors
• Exercise in Color: Dressing Up(town)
• La Vie en Rose
• A Lot of Khaki

photo: Abrams Books

Zakowska’s job doesn’t end with color and costume design. She is also responsible for overseeing hundreds (sometimes thousands) of rental costumes used in a single episode. “You have to be very prepared mentally,” she says. Last season the show costumed about 8,000 extras (even during COVID). “I have always approached the process as a total picture that I get very involved with the extras. It is very important to me that everything has this harmonious visual feeling. One extra that passes in a strange color or something out of sync can literally throw off the entire energy that you are building with the clothes and with the color. You want to make sure all the energy is in sync.”

photo: Nicole Rivelli

Midge Maisel: Beyond the Dresses

It has been said that Midge Maisel “starts every adventure with an accessory.” So every hat, shoe, and bag has to tell a story.  To that end, Zakowska has certainly crafted a rich and thoughtful narrative. Her work has become so iconic that she has been awarded two Emmy Awards for her work on the show, and two of her costumes have been added to the collection at Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. 

Donna Zakowska’s connection to Manhattan Wardrobe Supply also runs deep. In addition to the show being a frequent shopper, Zakowska has also worked with co-founder Cheryl Kilbourne-Kimpton, who was the wardrobe supervisor on the film The Pallbearer.