As costume designer for “That ’70s Show” and “That ”80s Show” — the latter which premiered Jan. 23 on Fox — it’s not uncommon for her to be seen one day outfitting actors in polyester pantsuits and a week later lugging around leggings and bangle bracelets.
Root — who won an Emmy award in 1997 for her work on “3rd Rock from the Sun” and again snagged an Emmy in 1999 for “That ’70s Show” — jokes that she “cringed in horror” when Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, producers of “That ’80s Show,” asked her to work on the retro-sitcom.
“It’s sort of a bloated period [the Eighties],” says Root, in a telephone interview from the show’s costume department at CBS Studio Center in Studio City, Calif. “I just feel like there was too much fabric in a lot of stuff, too many accessories, the hair was too stiff and the earrings were too big.”
But Root, 40, admits that during the Eighties she was a slave to the decade’s fashions.
“I was so excited by Eighties fashion when I was in the Eighties,” she says. “I remember an issue of Vogue that came out with Brooke Shields or Isabella Rossellini in it wearing some incredibly textured pattern Versace clothes, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is so exciting.’ I just loved all of those Japanese clothes — they were absolutely brilliant. I also loved parachute pants.”
Root graduated in 1983 from Yale University with a bachelor of arts in English and then headed to New York, where she spent the remainder of the decade working in the costume design departments of various theater companies, as well as “Saturday Night Live.” She also returned to Yale, where she graduated in 1990 with a master of fine arts in design.
Although Root has no plans to resurrect her Eighties wardrobe for her own use, she has revived many of the decade’s looks for the cast of “That ’80s Show,” which follows around a group of twentysomethings living in San Diego in 1984.
Related Articles
You May Also Like
“We have rubber bracelets, metal bracelets, cutoff T-shirts, big earrings, big hair, scrunchie boots, wide belts, leggings, shoulder pads, jumpsuits and those great Cyndi Lauper and ‘I’ve discovered Madonna’ bustiers, which were so big in the early Eighties.”
Root says she culls the garish looks from a variety of sources, such as Hollywood studio costume houses, thrift shops and vintage stores, including Resurrection in New York, Meow in Long Beach, Calif., and Playclothes in North Hollywood, Calif.
When she initially landed the gig, Root says she “started from a very personal place” for inspiration for the cast’s attire.
“I looked at my old photographs and I made my whole crew bring in photographs from 1984, and we started there before we got into fashion magazines, because I find that pictures of real people are much more helpful and much more inspirational,” she says. “Everybody has a different memory, and for the Eighties, people’s memories are always foggy — we were all at nightclubs or something.”
Root says the mostly twentysomething cast has no qualms about donning the retro looks.
“They just think it’s so fun,” she says. “I’m putting people in Michael Jackson zipper jackets and parachute pants, and they are jumping up and down saying, ‘Thank God I don’t work in a bank.’ The clothes are pretty ugly — but fun.”
After being at the design helm of both “That ’70s Show” and “That ’80s Show,” would Root be willing to work on a show set in the Nineties?
“Oh my God, that’s just so frightening to think of,” she says, laughing. “I really liked the mid-Nineties. I liked the minimalist, early Prada years. I didn’t like the early Nineties with the big flouncy Chanel chain belts and I sort of hate the late-Nineties hippie-dippie revival.”
Given her choice, though, she says: “I would do ‘That 18th-Century Show.’ Pretty much any part of the 18th century, because fashion changed so slowly then, you really could do 70 years’ worth of stuff and it would look the same.”
Despite her initial resistance to stroll down the Eighties catwalk, Root says she is no longer resistant to the decade’s fashion sensibility.
“I’m growing to love the Eighties,” she says. “After the simplicity of the Seventies, it’s just great to see things that are funny and garish and full of bad taste — good bad taste.”