From the second costume designer Helen Huang obtained her arms on the script for Beef, the brand new Netflix and A24 sequence that’s change into one thing of a cultural phenomenon, she felt she knew one of many lead characters, Danny (Steven Yeun) intimately.
“He was like my stepbrothers, rising up within the San Gabriel Valley,” Huang tells me over Zoom from her workplace in New York Metropolis. “I used to be mates with guys like him in highschool. I knew the identification, and knew that somebody like him had by no means been placed on display screen earlier than.”
Huang set out on a mission to create a wardrobe that authentically captured the spirit and life-style of Asian People dwelling within the Los Angeles space. That was an finish aim shared by Beef creator Lee Sung Jin, whom Huang refers to by his English identify, Sonny. The outcome: an natural and real depiction of Asian American, Southern California tradition in Beef, which is being hailed as probably the greatest new reveals on TV, particularly for the best way every Asian character is a completely shaped particular person somewhat than the sidekick comedian aid or a bit participant. “You by no means see that on TV,” Huang provides. “Asian males’s likes and dislikes, their preferences, not to mention a backstory, are by no means proven. It’s fairly insane how shallow they’re written generally.”
Within the case of Beef, Lee assembled an almost all-Asian forged, with members of the Asian diaspora engaged on the present behind the scenes, to infuse characters like Danny, his brother Paul (Younger Mazino), Amy (Ali Wong), and her husband George (Joseph Lee) with complicated character traits. That’s very true in the case of the plot for the present, which facilities Danny and Amy, who change into entangled in a street rage incident that finally ends up tearing their private lives to shreds.
“They’re layered people,” Huang provides. “I like the truth that, though Danny and Amy get embroiled on this stuff and do horrible issues, you may sympathize with them.” Under, the costume designer—who beforehand labored on American Horror Story, Station Eleven, The Shrink Subsequent Door, and lots of extra tasks over the course of her 25-year profession—breaks down every of Beef’s characters’ appears to be like, from Amy’s signature wire-rimmed glasses to the significance of getting Danny’s home slippers excellent.
Danny
Danny is a personality consumed by bitter rage and remorse, emotions of inadequacy and guilt over not having the ability to present a greater life for his dad and mom in Korea. He’s additionally a personality caught within the aughts, style-wise. “I used to be speaking to Steven about it, and Danny is a kind of guys who stopped shopping for garments when he was 25,” Huang says with amusing. When Danny goes out to a membership in Okay-town, he wears a DKNY outfit (replete with a belt from the Specific attire model Construction, donated by Lee from his private closet)—for church, a cornflower blue button-down from JC Penney.
However “Danny does perceive what he’s presenting to the world, since he took a variety of care with how he presents himself at work,” Huang provides. Nonetheless, the clothes he wears at house is normal West Facet L.A. fare: free basketball shorts, white t-shirts and tank tops, and a pair of home footwear very particular to Asian males. “We needed to do a variety of costume looking as a result of slippers don’t come like that anymore,” Huang provides. “We did attempt further exhausting to thrift these issues so that they felt extra genuine.” In a nutshell, Danny is a little bit of a scrub—and Huang needed to point out that facet of him by means of “free t-shirts.” “In one of many scenes, we truly reprinted a Dash shirt for him,” she says. “Steven and I assumed he may need gotten it from a job honest or one thing.”
Amy
Ali Wong’s character, Amy, is Calabasas artwork mother personified: her closet is populated by minimal, muted, oversize, and cozy clothes that may very well be bought at any COS location. “You would say Ali’s character is extra fashionable, has extra style. However for me, the larger concept is exploring whether or not these characters are conscious of the area of interest they’re a part of,” Huang explains. “It’s extra to dial into their worlds and make everybody see how caged they’re in these particular person worlds. That’s what the fashion is meant to do.”
As for Amy’s signature outsize, octagonal glasses, Huang says she needed to “divorce her” from the actress Wong, who sometimes wears cat-eye glasses throughout her stand-up specials. And Amy’s woven hat, which she has on within the very first scene of the primary episode in the course of the street rage incident, is an “exclamation level for her clothes,” based on Huang. “For the primary half of the episode, she’s in her automotive, and also you don’t see the remainder of her outfit. What may let you know that this girl may be very curated from only one look?”
Paul
Paul, performed by Younger Mazino, is Danny’s youthful brother—who seems to mooch off his older sibling and is tenuously employed. However extra importantly, he’s a product of his surroundings, Huang says. “Rising up Asian, your hometown actually defines your fashion and your outlook,” she provides. “When Asian males are youthful, due to how ostracized they will really feel, they have a tendency to latch onto subcultures.” As such, Paul is a gamer with a touch of mall-skater—he rocks a thick gold chain that’s quintessentially Asian and continues to be caught on joggers. “We needed to make his denims tremendous mall,” she says. “He wears a variety of Champion, a variety of flannel, skinny denims. To me, that was simply sufficient to point out geographically the place he’s at.”
Isaac
David Choe’s Isaac is “an aggressive character—with a mood and a rap sheet,” Huang says. “I knew as quickly as they forged David, who’s such an inventive individual, that was a terrific alternative to do no matter I needed.” However the costume designer was conscious of decreasing Isaac to easily being “the Asian villain.” She imagined his pursuits included “crystals and astrology,” and his idiosyncratic “import-export” enterprise as a strategy to feed his ardour for tchotchkes. “Isaac is that this man who goes all all over the world and comes again, like ‘Have a look at this rock I purchased for a thousand {dollars}! It’s a dinosaur rock!’” Huang says. “He values issues apart from gold and silver.”
Isaac was additionally the one character whose whole wardrobe was sourced from costume homes: beaded necklaces, old-head hip-hop clothes like throwback Sean John jerseys. “It lends itself very effectively to his character: he’s not part of Amy’s world, he’s not part of Danny’s world,” Huang says. “He’s very a lot himself. And even a man who’s presupposed to be a villain might be inventive.”
George
Ah, George: candy, not-so-innocent, a bit of misplaced pet. Amy’s husband, an artist hell-bent on promoting his turd-like sculptures, is blissfully unaware of his spouse’s unhappiness—both that, or he’s selecting to disregard it. However he’s all the time one factor: fashionable. Performed by Joseph Lee, George’s hair is well-coiffed, his comfy, relaxed clothes coming from the likes of Nanamica, Needles, or Dries Van Noten. “Asian males like dressing up—that’s one other level I needed to get throughout on the present,” Huang says. George introduced a possibility as an example how “Asian males care about the best way they appear, they usually can look so many alternative methods—they usually’re enjoyable to decorate up and to take a look at.”
“George’s dad was an artist,” Huang provides. “I did need him to look a bit of bit extra worldwide. He must match Amy in the kind of aesthetic of their home, as a result of that’s an enormous component of them. They solely go to sure shops, they solely purchase sure potteries for his or her home, they solely purchase sure chairs they usually’re very aesthetically curated folks. A buddy textual content me the opposite day and mentioned ‘George appears to be like particular bougie.’ You’re on a sure financial stage in case you’re dressing like that, however nonetheless conserving it informal. He’s positively a fashionista.”
George along with his daughter and trendy mom, Fumi, performed by Patti Yasutake.
Courtesy of Netflix
Jordan
Jordan (Maria Bello) is without doubt one of the solely white characters within the sequence—and that element is made very clear by her curiosity in overseas cultures and peoples (“You’ve got this serene, Zen Buddhist factor,” she tells Amy.) “We have been considering—what does Jordan worth? And the way may we present that she is de facto wealthy?” Huang says. “We determined we may present that with the issues she curates from all all over the world.” Jordan is a rich artwork collector whose gigantic, cavernous house is crammed with international artifacts. “She’s the type of one that is supporting textiles in India or one thing, and it’s a really heartfelt curiosity, however she doesn’t see that on the stage she’s accumulating, she’s accumulating cultures, and that’s appropriation.”
Along with uncommon crowns, Jordan additionally collects folks—together with Amy and the character Naomi, performed by Ashley Park. “Jordan has a slight component of bohemian,” Huang provides. “She’s not likely nice, however there’s a sincerity about her that generally makes you uncomfortable. She’s very agency and believing in her world. And so she does show all these items that she has collected—and she or he wears ‘em.”
