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Costume designer Marissa Schwartz found her way into styling while in fashion school. "I ended up walking up to somebody one day that was speaking at this event, who was a stylist, and asked if I could assist her," Schwartz said. "She was wonderful and incredible, and to this day, [she's] a mentor of mine who sort of thrust me into the world of styling." In the latest episode of The Who What Wear Podcast, Schwartz shares how she landed her job on the Amazon Prime Video series Sterling Point, the hardest piece to source for the show, and more.
To read excerpts from the conversation, scroll below.
How did you get into costume design in the first place and fall in love with fashion?
As a kid, I was just a very creative being and really drawn to color and texture and was just excited to put on a show from a really young age. I was lucky to be involved in theater growing up, and that really set the stage for me to learn about building character and story. Like many young women, I was just really into fashion as a form of expression, as a form of fitting in.
I found myself leaving high school a bit lost and a bit unsure [about] what the next steps were. Most of my peers were going to get very academic degrees, and it just didn't resonate with me. I'm really lucky that my parents always encouraged me to follow my gut, and my gut was to go to fashion school, which I did, and it was heavily focused on merchandising—a little bit more of the retail side of business fashion.
When I left that program, I knew styling was the area of expertise that I wanted to explore. Mind you, at that time, even within my program, there wasn't a lot of information or a direct path to what that could look like as a career. I ended up walking up to somebody one day that was speaking at this event, who was a stylist, and asked if I could assist her. She was wonderful and incredible, and to this day, [she's] a mentor of mine who sort of thrust me into the world of styling.
I started in fashion print, editorial. [I] loved it. It was at the moment when print was going out of print, I guess. It was that unknown, and I wasn't sure if it was going to be the thing that would really be successful for me in the long run, so I decided to go back to school for makeup, which was a secondary love, something I came to love in my early adulthood.
That program I was in was heavily film and TV focused, and that was where everything fell into place. The light bulb went off, and I discovered that there was a path for my love of fashion and clothes and story and creativity, and everything snowballed from that point forward.
Tell me how you got connected with Sterling Point and what made you want to say yes to this project in particular.
I got a cold call one day from our lovely producer Anna Beben. This was not a job that I should have been put forward for because it was with a different union. In Toronto, we have two different unions, and this one was with a union that I am not part of, or I wasn't at the time.
They just hadn't found the right fit, so at that point, they looked outside of that union resource, and it only came to light after I got the job that my name came to them through our producer Louie [Hayes], who's with LuckyChap. He had, I guess, reached out to his network here in Toronto, somebody that he knew who had done a movie here years ago. (And I need to find out who this person is and give them a ton of thanks because I had never actually met them.) He had just heard good things about me, which was so incredible that he was willing to pass my name on based on that. That is how my name got passed on.
What sort of research did you do to make sure that you were true to Gen Z style without turning it into something ridiculous, over-the-top, and clearly crafted by an adult?
At the end of the day, many adults are often the ones that have a hand in creating a visual of what it looks like to be a teen. There were a few different pillars for me that were really important. I got on TikTok, I got on Instagram, and I'm scrolling, and I'm saving videos and photos. I'm just trying to understand the language and the looks and what is happening today in this demographic.
The other thing that I think stands the test of time is people are individual and have really unique, nuanced ways of showing up in the world. When I'm building a character, any character—whether they're 8 or 80 or anywhere in between—what do I know about them from the script and the story? What can I dive into that's going to help create that?
Then, of course, there are layers on top of that. … What is their demo? Where do they live? What socioeconomic background do they come from? Those are all things that influence the decisions.
The other pillar is just our cast. They were so incredible in helping bridge the gap for me of when things veered millennial—dare I say it? Something that I feel is a really big part of my process when I'm building a character is working super closely with the actors because, at the end of the day, they have to show up in their body and do what they have to do to create a person outside of themselves, so it's a real collaboration.
What was the hardest piece to source for the show?
I would say the hardest piece was the bathing suit that Annie wears in [episode 4] when she's in the sauna with Rory. We actually ended up making it. It was such a fun endeavor, and I'm so grateful for the experience because I will make every bathing suit from now on, I think. We tried so many on, and there were great options, but ultimately, for how it had to function, we really needed it to hit specific technical requirements that real swimwear just wasn't working. We ended up building it from scratch, and it took a lot of fittings and time and patience, and I think anybody in fashion or costume will tell you that the [simpler] something looks, the harder it is to execute because you can't hide anything.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.