House of Cards Costumer Breaks Down Robin Wright's Wardrobe

Tom Broecker has been costuming Saturday Night Live since 1994 (or, as he puts it, "for about 140 years"). The designer is also responsible for Tina Fey's iconic look as Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. But it's Broecker's recent work on Netflix's political series House of Cards that is most compelling—and which has scored him a double nomination this year at the Costume Designers Guild Awards. For the first time, Broecker is up against himself in the Outstanding Contemporary Television Series category for both Saturday Night Live and House of Cards.

On House of Cards Broecker has used a monochrome, largely grey palette to underscore the sneaky political dealings of Washington, DC. Robin Wright's Claire Underwood, the wife of conniving House Majority Whip, Francis "Frank" Underwood (Kevin Spacey), is the show's standout, largely because of her memorable fashion choices. The show's second season premieres on February 14 via Netflix so we asked Broecker to explain some of his choices for the characters. Let's just say that YSL has probably seen an uptick in handbag sales since season one kicked off.

Is there any similarity between costuming 'SNL' and 'House of Cards?'

On some level they both are good representations of how costume designers can tell stories. But they tell very different stories. Certainly with Saturday Night Live there’s a crazy range: from the photo shoots, to the normal “Let’s go to Barneys and pick out a cute outfit,” to more theatrical kinds of design. With House of Cards, the design is much more consistent.

How much time do you get to create the costumes each week for 'SNL?'

Two and a half days! We get scripts Wednesday night and we start Thursday morning. Everything has to be done in some form by dress rehearsal at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. We shoot the photos on Tuesdays so I usually have a day of prep for that.

Do you create the look the 'SNL' host wears during their monologue or is that done by their stylist?

Sometimes they bring stylists, sometimes they don’t. I would say 90 percent of the time a host will not bring a stylist so it’s up to me to help them create that look. Part of it is dependent on what they want to do in the monologue or what has been written in the monologue. They might be flying, they might be dancing, they might just be standing there. We have to be prepared for anything. I always say that I’ve done a really good job if it looks like them. That’s my job as the stylist/designer of the show—to make that person look like themselves or the best version of themselves as they can be.

'House of Cards' has a really dark and grey tone to all the clothes. Why make everything so monochrome?

The tone really came about in a discussion with [director] David [Fincher]. We wanted to divide it into two worlds. People on Capitol Hill tend to be fairly neutral in their palette of clothes. There’s a lot of navy blue and grey, and men tend to wear white or blue shirts. The other world is the newspaper world and that’s much more academic. It’s warmer in its tone of green-greys or warm browns. Also, David’s favorite color is grey. We also knew we didn’t want to use red. There’s only one time in the entire show that actual red appears. With the neutral palette you can see the faces more, and we wanted to have the feeling of a Caravaggio painting and those carved out faces.

What sort of psychology goes into deciding what Claire will wear?

With her character we really wanted to have this armored, tailored, tight, nothing out of place feel. She also needed to look different from everyone else on the show. She free floats from one world to the next world because she runs her own company. On some level, too, we wanted her to be the female equivalent of Francis. To have as much power as Francis did. It was more about which designers really reinforced her silhouette and which designers we could tailor to have that precision and that armored feel.

Which designers did you find worked best for that?

A lot of her skirts were either Prada or L’Wren Scott. Her shirts were Theory, those sort of man-tailored shirts. With dresses we would do Gucci, Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Narciso Rodriguez. Burberry coats. That gave it the tailored strength for her. I had an amazing tailor, too, who would tailor everything to her body.

Why does Claire carry the YSL Muse bag?

The thing with Washington, DC is that people find that showing your wealth is vulgar. If you have money, you can’t show you have money. Everyone wants to think that they’re equal so we wanted to go with a bag that wasn’t so current that it wouldn’t be like, “Oh my God, she just spent that much money on that bag!” We wanted a bag that was a season or two over. And a bag that she could throw her computer in and just carry on her arm without having to think about it. So part of it was practical as well as character-driven.

As you were working on the first season of 'House of Cards' did you realize Claire would become such a fashion icon?

No! I love it, but it’s the sort of thing where I was interested in telling a story as to who this person was. To be consistent and develop her character over time so that over the 13 episodes you get a real sense of who this woman is. And you get a sense of a consistent identity. That was the thing that was interesting to me in her storytelling—why she wore certain things and why she wore them at that certain moment. As a costume designer my job is to reinforce the story and to help the actor form an identity of their character. I couldn’t start off the show by thinking she would be a style icon because I wouldn’t have known how to approach it then.

It seems like maybe you have a favorite character. Is that allowed?

Well, yes, clearly there was someone I was obsessed with dressing. By the end it was like, “Yes, Robin, this is how we’re going to dress you!” Robin and I were so in sync with each other that we were very much like brother and sister. I adore her and we have a very similar aesthetic. Certainly toward the end she was a great character to dress. I also love dressing Kate Mara because she’s the antithesis of Robin.

Photos: Patrick Harbron/Netflix

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