Sterling Point Costume Designer Marissa Schwartz on Acing Gen Z Style and Where to Shop the Characters' Looks

0:10Welcome to the Who What Wear podcast. I'm your host, Hillary Kerr. And today, I'm joined by Marissa Schwartz, the costume designer of the hit new series, Sterling Point. The YA show has been praised for its heart and its authenticity. And much of that is due to Marissa's talent for creating lived-in wardrobes for the Gen Z cast. She shares how she approached main character Annie's evolution from polished New York native to relaxed Muskoka Lake girl. And we get some behind the scenes on Chanel's participation in costuming the show. Plus, Marissa spills which character had the most expensive wardrobe, and it's not who you think.

0:53It's all coming up on Who What Wear.

1:03Marissa, are you ready? Let's go. First of all, I just have to say that one, welcome to the pod. And two, I am so excited to have you on because Sterling Point has been, even though I realize I'm not the trad demographic for it, Sterling Point has been such a light of my summer. I have been getting such a kick out of it and have loved all of your work on it. So I'm really excited that we get to discuss. Thank you. How did you get into costume design in the first place and fall in love with fashion?

1:34Marissa Schwartz:I guess as a kid, I was just a very creative being and really drawn to like color and texture and was just excited to put on a show from a really young age. And I was lucky to be involved in theater growing up. And so that really set the stage for me to learn about building character and story. I think 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 like a bit lost and a bit unsure as what the next steps were. Most of my peers were, you know, going to get very like academic degrees and I, it just didn't resonate with me.

2:21Marissa Schwartz:And I'm really lucky that my parents always encouraged me to follow my gut. And so my gut was to go to fashion school, which I did. And it was heavily focused in merchandising. So a little bit more of like the retail side of, you know, 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 like a direct path to what that could look like as a career. And so 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.

3:07Marissa Schwartz:And she was wonderful and incredible. And to this day, a mentor of mine who sort of thrust me into the world of styling. So I started in fashion, print editorial, loved it. It was sort of at the moment when print was going out of out of print, I guess. Yeah. And 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. And so I decided to go back to school for makeup, which was sort of like a secondary love, something I came to love in my early adulthood. And that program I was in was heavily film and TV focused. And that was kind of where everything fell into place and the light bulb went off.

3:55Marissa Schwartz:And I discovered that there was like a path for my love of fashion and clothes and story and creativity. And everything sort of snowballed from from that point forward. Tell me how you got connected with Sterling Point and what made do want to say yes to this project in particular? I got a cold call one day from our lovely producer Anna Bevin. Again, it was like similar to the moment I saw the email from y 'all in my inbox where I was like, Megan Park, Josh and Stephanie from the OC and Gossip Girl, lucky chap, I'm going to black out. That was like a very quick, like, yeah, send me the details.

4:35Marissa Schwartz:Absolutely. Absolutely. I wasn't supposed to be there. Like it, this was not a job that I, I should have been put forward for because it was with a different union. So 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. And 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, Louis, who's with Lucky Chap. And he had, I guess, reached out to his network here in Toronto. And 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.

5:25Marissa Schwartz:He had just heard, like good things about me, which was so incredible that he was willing to pass my name on based on that. And that is how my name got passed on. It wasn't even like a Toronto connection, which is kind of crazy. So that was how I was connected to the job. And then I loved the script. I remember reading it and thinking, even if I don't get this job, I can't wait for it to come out. Like it's such a good script and story. I'm hooked. I, I see the world also, like I read it and I could completely see the world. And so I just felt that I had a really good take on the look of this show.

6:07Marissa Schwartz:And also just being a fan of Megan's and knowing a little bit about her aesthetic, I had a feeling that we would be aligned. And so it was really quick process. Once I initially met with our producer, Anna and Stephanie Savage, that went really well. And then I met with Megan shortly thereafter. And a couple of weeks later, I was in office. That's so cool. I love it. Obviously, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am a big fan of the show, but for anyone in our audience who's listening to this, if they haven't seen it, can you give us just like the briefest of overviews about what the show is about and our main characters?

6:43Sure.

6:44Marissa Schwartz:We start the show. We meet Annie, whose twin brother is Connor and they are kids who were adopted in New York City. Their biological mom passed when they were really young and they discover that they have been left property in Muskoka through their estranged grandfather. It appears to be shrouded in mystery and their dad is very cagey about it. And so Annie takes it upon herself to jet over to Muskoka and she lands on the ground and discovers it is not what it seems. And there is much more to uncover about her family history when she arrives. I always wonder what it's like working on a show where the main characters are teenagers or young adults, because no matter like how tapped into youth culture you are, I would feel nervous about like that adult POV looking at those characters because you don't want to get it wrong.

7:41What sort of research did you do to make sure that you were true to Gen Z style without turning it into something ridiculous and over the top and like clearly crafted by an adult?

7:53Marissa Schwartz:Yes. It's a great question. And it's a really good point that at the end of the day, like many adults are often the ones that have a hand in creating a visual of what it looks like to be a teen. There was like a few different kind of like pillars for me that were really important. Initially, I was just, you know, I got on, I got on TikTok, I got on Instagram, and I'm like, I'm scrolling, and I'm saving videos and photos. And I'm just trying to understand like the language and the looks and what is happening today, you know, in this demographic. But 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.

8:43Marissa Schwartz:And so when I'm building a character, any character, whether they're eight or 80 or anywhere in between, what do I know about them from the script and the story? And what can I dive into that's going to help create that? And then of course, there's like layers on top of that where it's like, what is their demo? Where do they live? What socioeconomic background do they come from? So those are all things that influence the decisions. And then the other pillar is just our past. Like they were so incredible in helping bridge the gap for me of like when things veered millennials, dare I say it as a tried and true millennial, 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, like they have to show up in their body and do what they have to do to create a person outside of themselves.

9:44Marissa Schwartz:And so it's a real collaboration. And oftentimes, you know, I'll bring in an idea or a reference image and that's a starting point. And from there, we really build together. And so simple things like Ella was really helpful in like the flats that the girls are wearing, like the very specific niche flats, you know, not the pointed toe. Like there was just like little things. And I was all ears. I was like, let's go. I don't mind. No bad ideas. And if I am not right, that's probably a good thing. And I would always sort of lean on them to kind of like help guide me. But it was a real collaboration.

10:25Marissa Schwartz:And then, you know, with Megan, who just has incredible taste. Again, it was like just an amazing aligned team. And so all of our brains together, I think, just created a really, really believable result. Even starting from episode one, we meet the twins. We're in New York City. They obviously come from wealth and have lots of access, but I love that they also have very different personal styles. So as you were building their New York wardrobes, like what were some of the fundamentals that you thought like, okay, this is very Andy, this is very Connor. This is where we start. Yeah. So we kind of chose like a few brands and stores that they might shop at or have as staples, as really good foundations.

11:16Marissa Schwartz:So for Annie, it was like getting basics at Lisette, at Cuckoo, at Flore Flore, some of her tees and, you know, her jeans are still here. She wears things at by like see New York. And so it was about creating the staples of her wardrobe that were those like elevated basics where she'd have easy access and she has wealth. And so she would be, you know, procuring items from these places, which totally made sense to us alongside still thrifted pieces that showed her personal style. We also infused some Chanel, which was I clocked that really early on. I was like, is that, is that the watch? Is that the, are those shoes?

12:01Like sunglasses made sense. It was like, oh, okay. Interesting. Like there's like a very, if you know, you know, right off the bat. Yeah.

12:08Marissa Schwartz:And so we were approached by Chanel about the project. And initially I was like, first of all, just like, whoa, that's great. That's so cool. But also I was like, I just need to make sure it aligns with the character. Like as much as I love Chanel as, as, you know, just a fashion lover, it had to make sense for Annie as a character. And as we sort of got into it, we quickly realized that her sort of having these accessories from this heritage brand made a lot of sense. And there was always backstory. So to me, it was like her dad walks into the Chanel store and is like, it's my daughter's 17th birthday.

12:44Marissa Schwartz:I want to buy her shoes. She's a size seven, you know, and it's like the pieces that she would have gotten sort of for gifts or that she might've been like, this is what I want for my graduation or for getting all A's or whatever it was, we're sort of seen through those like accessories that were very important to her that as she moves through the show, we'd see less and less. Right. And then of course, one of my favorite pieces that for me was, this was my Gen Z spin. And again, it actually really came from me as a teenager, which is she wears this Chanel hobo bag, this blue suede bag. And I loved it as a choice for a teen girl, because to this day, I will still choose suede and always it's not that I regret it it's just like it is a very very silly youthful immature choice for a very expensive piece because it's incredibly hard to maintain um beautiful nonetheless so I thought it was like very to me it was like funny and also gave us a really good sense of Annie's like personal taste so those were sort of like our hero Chanel pieces and so again for Annie she's like she's not flashy she's not like showing off her wealth in a crazy way.

13:55Marissa Schwartz:I think she wants to come off really polished, really mature. She's like very parentified. And so it was really important that, you know, we see her in collared shirts and stripes and things that gave us the sense of like rigidity and maturity. Exactly. Whereas on the other side, Connor is, I mean, the brilliant Keen can pull anything off and he was so much fun. And it was very easy for us to veer into like, you know, preppy, rich New York boy. But the character himself had so much more depth to it than that. And we wanted, again, him to feel like born and raised in New York and someone who had a little bit more life experience, albeit he can be a little bit stupid sometimes, like in a really lovable way.

14:50Marissa Schwartz:but like he definitely also has an innate sense of style and creativity and so we would pair really sort of like luxe expensive brands like Margiela for his basics. Connor's wardrobe was the most expensive on the show and he had the least amount of pieces so like just to give you context like yeah he did not have that many items but everything was an asset on our show you know he's wearing like Jacques-Marie Maje glasses yep it was so so much fun to build a wardrobe like that where it really was about he is kind of throwing his wealth around and yeah it feels almost like the the carelessness of like a rich boy but it's a bit rock and roll it's like yeah he just has this nonchalance about him yeah that again like one of our little stories because I think at one point he's wearing like a Marnie t-shirt.

15:47Marissa Schwartz:Annie goes in there to buy like a tote bag, something practical. And he's like, what am I going to get? I guess I'll get a t-shirt, you know, like just like that sort of brother thing. Annie is clearly the adult and the relationship there. And so it was really fun to kind of create the versions of them in New York that we then get to transplant into Muskoka. I also really loved Annie's travel outfit when she's flying from New York. She looks so chic. She's in white jeans and a white tank and has this amazing, I think it was a Dries Van Noten brown silk, like duster coat on plus all of the Chanel accessories.

16:22As someone who travels a lot, it really made me laugh. I was like, oh, we're wearing all white to travel. Like, okay, okay. And how that must have like put her at odds with the community that she shows up in, you know, which is a Lake community. So talk to me a little bit about building that look.

16:40Marissa Schwartz:So that look took us the longest to land on in the entirety of her looks in the show, simply because it had to serve so many purposes. So, of course, like we're really introduced to her character in episode one and it lives in so much of the episode that it had to say all the things we wanted it to say. One, it's setting up this fish out of water story. Two, it is showing this like mature, more polished girl that is going to eventually evolve and relax into this whole other lifestyle. You literally gave her layers. And it had to have layers. And it like, there was like a functional aspect as well.

17:22Marissa Schwartz:And so we had so many conversations like, what is this? And for me, there has to be a level of like believability. Like I get really obsessed with the nuance of why would she put on this all white outfit? Like, what does she think it's going to be like when she lands? She's so procedural about her skincare and her packing. So like it all had to make sense to me. And I think ultimately to me, she felt like she was going to a place like the Hamptons or the Caribbean. So like the all white made sense, right? she's also wearing all of her like luxury accessories because who knows does she have to interact with some adults there with a lawyer she wants to be taken seriously you know she's still like a 17 year old girl it's like armor it's totally like armor but at the same time she's a teen girl like she's wearing this store called Ardennes which is like a teen store they have like tons of it's a very inexpensive tons of accessories and we tried on like a million white tank tops But we ended up landing on the one that was the most inexpensive.

18:27Marissa Schwartz:It's funny because someone did a video. Megan sent me this of someone being like, we found the tank. And it's like the row. And I'm like, I wish it was the row. But no, I was like, Megan, this kills me. It was$15. To me, that's like such a correct choice. You know, she's like draped in Dries Van Noten. But her base layer is her like cheap and cheerful tank top, right? We all have those. It was a really interesting look to build. I do think it really worked. And it was such a good launch pad for us to kind of tell the story of Annie's evolution and also still place her as like a teen girl who is trying to kind of come across more adults.

19:09So talk to me a little bit more about the Chanel relationship. So as you said, they came to you, which is amazing. How much freedom did you have? Did you have a quota of like you can borrow this many pieces or you have to use this many pieces. Like what was that process like?

19:24Marissa Schwartz:Honestly, it was so incredible because there were no official boundaries. They basically, like in the sense of, they sort of offered to jump on a call for us to talk. So it was like very organic. We shared a bit about Annie and the character and the things that felt like it might be a good fit. They got back to us with like a bit of a spec sheet that we could look through and sort of like circle what we wanted to try. And they were very, very generous. I mean, I was conscientious about not over asking. I didn't want to just bring it in to bring it in. I wanted to make sure it was something I genuinely thought made sense and was going to work.

20:04Marissa Schwartz:And so I think the combination of like being really mindful of the relationship and respecting, you know, the pieces coupled with it working so well for the character. We were just in such great shape when we did end up having these calls with Chanel and telling them a bit about the story. Um, I knew we were going to be mostly focused on accessories. Like I knew that was really the world we were going to live in, in terms of what we would be able to use in the show. But they had asked about clothing and I told them a little bit about episode two and what was happening for Annie. And I thought, you know, maybe you have something like no pressure.

20:44Marissa Schwartz:It has to believably belong to Missy Pyle, who's this like tall, gorgeous goddess. Anyway, so I gave them the specs for it. And they came back with the dress Annie wears in episode two amongst a couple other options. And I sort of just had this like gut reaction to that dress. I like circled it so many times. It's like, we'd love to see this dress. And so we were really privileged that they sent us this dress. And we're talking about the white lace one from the spring, summer 2023 collection, right? Yeah, black and long and stunning. It is stunning. And it is such a moment. Ella tried it on. There was like, the room went silent.

21:24Marissa Schwartz:Like there was there was no other options tried. It was such a slam dunk. And funny enough, a look that traditionally would be like a bit intimidating and overwhelming to source and fit is something that is scripted like that versus like, Oh, the first day she goes to the island. But actually we had such an opposite experience where the island love, the travel look was like a much more complicated and nuanced to put together. And this Chanel dress moment was like a one and done alone piece. They were so incredible. They even sent us a second one because we had to stunt double it. I mean, they were just really incredible partners.

22:03Marissa Schwartz:I'm so, so grateful to them. Well, I also want to talk about Annie's friends and the folks that she meets at the lake. It's obviously so much more casual than the way that she shows up. There are lots of pieces that feel like they have overlap, Crocs and Birkenstocks and clogs and jorts and vintage t-shirts and cutoffs and sportswear. How did you start to build the framework for this group of teenagers who live and work in a lake community in Canada? This is where I was able to pull from my own experience. So I was going to say, did you go and like check out what teenagers were wearing? Well, I grew up going to camp in Muskoka for many years.

22:49Marissa Schwartz:Stop it. Oh, that's so personal information. That's great. That's the thing. Like I read the script and I was like, I know this world. Like I really did know it on the ground. And so it, that part came very easily to me. My cousin is literally the Muskoka farmer. Like my cousin and her husband live up there year round and, you know, have this like really beautiful vegetable farm. And so I have been there as an adult. I spent many summers as a kid. And again, that understanding of that casual like look and lifestyle, I just know it like the back of my hand. I guess I should say. And so really inspired by people that I know that I've grown up with.

23:32Marissa Schwartz:And again, like it did come down to character first. So, you know, before knowing the environment, we really asked ourselves, like, who are these people? And why are they the way they are? And how might they express themselves, the landscape, the area, the access to what they have, like all of these things sort of inform how we envision their look. How did you pull so many great vintage t-shirts? I will say I had and have incredible buyers who I must shut out, Janiel and Amalia. They were just on a mission for the entirety of the six months to bring me as many vintage graphic tees as they could.

24:11Marissa Schwartz:Because it's really hard actually to use vintage t-shirts in shows because there's a whole back-end process with clearances and you get yeses, you get nos, it's like a bit of a crapshoot. And so for every yes that we got, there was probably like four to five nos. And you can only imagine the amount you see on screen. There's like a ton just sitting in our stock boxed up for maybe next year if we get to go and try it all over again. Toronto has an incredible resource of vintage thrift. And even Muskoka has some incredible stores that we got quite a bit from. And so all over the place. I was very jealous watching.

24:53It's like, I want one of those.

24:55Marissa Schwartz:It's just like, you got to dig. That's what it is. It's just digging. Yeah. Digging in dusty spaces. You've also received quite a bit of praise online for how well you nailed the wardrobes of the queer and gender non-conforming characters on the show. Again, this is sometimes something I've seen TV get wrong because they sort of fall back on stereotypes. So I'm curious about what was your approach to making sure that these characters' wardrobes felt authentic and fully realized and cool? I feel so much gratitude for getting that feedback and response. I care so deeply about the queer people in my life.

25:35Marissa Schwartz:And they absolutely were an amazing point of inspiration for how to dress these characters. It's just about like looking at the world around me and really pulling from that to help explore how to create that version on, you know, our actors who are in these characters. Truly like that is one of the most special things to come out of the show for me is knowing that we've done it and we've done it right. A very dear friend who I've known, I mean, I've known her her whole life since she was a baby and she's gonna marry her lovely fiance this fall. I remember seeing them last summer when we were filming and I was telling them about this like queer love story, this sapphic love story.