“The Studio” character Maya Mason has become a style icon thanks to her stacked Uggs, Diesel jeans and Louis Vuitton lock necklace. Oh, and let’s not forget her Dior diamonds.
When “The Studio” costume designer Kameron Lennox sat down with the show’s co-creator Evan Goldberg, she took down word-for-word how he described the potty-mouthed head of marketing at Continental Studios, played by Kathryn Hahn.
“Evan said to me, ‘She’s a 50-year-old woman who considers herself very in touch with the youth and uses technology or terminology that she is too old to use and dresses too young for her age,’” Lennox says.
Lennox, whose credits include “Pam and Tommy” and “Dumb Money,” took that cue and pored over social media accounts to build a mood board. Maya wasn’t based on any single person, but a combination of women. Lennox pulled images of women in that age range posing in those outfits: “They saw someone wearing it before and thought they could pull it off,” she says.
Not much is revealed about Maya’s personal life, but Lennox had ideas about this woman; she knew these women.
“Maybe she lives in Hollywood. She has a lot of money. Where does she shop?” Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue were out of the question. “She’s taking a chance on things. She goes to H. Lorenzo because it’s so fresh. She thinks that she’s the head of marketing, so she’s got it all down and has her finger on the pulse of street fashion,” Lennox says.
In the first episode, it’s clear Maya has a commanding presence whenever she’s in a room and needs to have an air about her. Lennox paired a tight shirt by Marine Serre with an Adidas Ivy Park harness bag.
“It’s got all this stuff hanging off of it, and it was a wild card in our fitting. But we mushed it together,” says Lennox. “It felt very kind of fashionable and militant in that moment. And we put her in stacked Uggs with sweatpants; that look is an amalgamation of pieces, but she felt very in charge in this house.”
As Lennox continued to build Maya’s looks, she decided Maya shops on the SSENSE sale page and brings those items into the workplace.
Accessorizing Maya provided Lennox with further insight into who she is. As with her clothing, Maya’s jewelry was over the top.
“That is very much so many women I know. They’re like, ‘If I have it, I’m going to show my wealth,’” says Lennox. “They’re going to wear it all at once. It helped that Hahn had all the ear piercings in place.
“There might be a level of insecurity somewhere in this woman’s life. She’s premenopausal. I’m assuming she’s a single mom,” says Lennox. “I don’t think we ever really touch on that in the story, but it’s the way that she fuels her fire, in a way, and she’s a woman of excess.”
When the characters head to Las Vegas and CinemaCon for their big studio presentation, Lennox went all out. The characters are, Lennox says, “Vegas versions of themselves. It’s much bigger and bolder.”
Maya’s party look was inspired by Jennifer Lopez, particularly her fly-girl era: “Maybe she’s still inspired by J.Lo. Some of the things, like in Episode 1, when she’s wearing those Diesel pants with the boots, the puffer and the Gucci hat, and her hair is in that beautiful ball, I said, ‘This is your Jenny from the Block era.’”
As Maya’s looks came together, Lennox knew they were onto something. Sure enough, a month after putting the Vegas party look together and filming had wrapped, Lennox saw a billboard for “The Voice” featuring Gwen Stefani in a similar outfit and hairdo. She thought, “We are so tapped in because no one had even seen the show.” Lennox sent a text to Hahn and said, “We did it first.”
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