The Americans' Spy Recap: Heavy Disguise

Talking about the importance of wigs, with the the show's veteran costume designer.


Season 2, Episode 3: "The Walk In"

During the new season of The Americans, we're looking at the show's use of espionage tactics, and getting behind-the-scenes accounts from the creators, directors, make-up artists, actors, and even former spies to help analyze what's under the covers. This week, Esquire spoke to veteran costume designer Jenny Gering about how the spy looks are created each week and what changes are in store for season two.

ESQUIRE.COM: When we see Elizabeth and Philip going undercover, what are the steps you go through to create their looks?

JENNY GERING: The first thing we need to figure out is if it's what we call "light disguise." They're still Philip and Elizabeth, but we're just trying to conceal their identities. That would be a baseball cap, or collar up — more cloak and dagger. The other option is "heavy disguise," where they actually want to change their identity. That's where we get into the crazy stuff. Sometimes the writers will say, "Elizabeth goes to visit this woman in her home, pretending to be a CIA person." Then I actually know what to do because I have a closet, a section of disguises, and I have a couple of different pain suits, overcoats, that I strictly use for CIA. We're in our second season, so I have a sense if it's "bureaucrat" or "CIA" or "lobbyist." A lot of times, the writers won't tell us. They'll just say "heavy disguise." We usually start with the wigs. That's the place to go. Then the actors will get involved and I can help build on that. It's such a team effort.

ESQ: In episode 3, "The Walk In," Philip and Elizabeth make a trip to Newport News to uncover what appeared to be military secrets. Was that considered "heavy disguise"?

JG: That's heavy disguise because she's pretending to be someone else. She's not Elizabeth in a heightened state. For that, they said, "I think we're going to be using this blonde wig." They'll send me a picture of the wig and I'll think, Okay, I'm feeling gym teacher here. I'm feeling dog breeder. Then I build on it. This scene, I saw the wig and thought I should have her be asexual and a little tough — like she could really do some damage with a field hockey stick!

ESQ: How would you describe the disguises this season?

JG: They're more varied. Because we're so concerned about making sure the scene is realistic, we were just getting our feet wet last season in terms of how far do we go? As we became more comfortable, we realized [Philip and Elizabeth] would have the resources and capabilities to do a number of things. Any number of looks. They're trained to do it. That gave us the freedom to go for it. They almost became more specific and more character based, where as last season, it was more generic. "Generic mid-level bureaucrat."

ESQ: In your line of work, you're thinking about what a character looks like. But on this show, you have to think about what a character's character looks like. Does that ever get confusing?

JG: No, because the characters of Philip and Elizabeth would approach it just that way. I don't need to start with changing Elizabeth into someone else. She knows how to do that. She would think, Who is this person? Do I want them to feel sorry for me? Do I want them to be scared of me? And from there, she'd come up with her own thing. The characters are actors, their daily lives are performances because they're not who they say they are.

ESQ: In thinking about real Russian spies from the early '80s, do you know if they ever made cultural mistakes with their wardrobes that gave themselves away?

JG: From my understanding, they're so indoctrinated at such a young age before they're released to the wild that my guess would be no. I don't know for sure. In season one, the fact that Philip and Elizabeth tell each other their Russian names was such a breach of training, in that they'd been together for over ten years and had never known. It shows just how well they're trained. If anything, they would go back to Russia and make mistakes there.

ESQ: So you're not working in little clues into their outfits.

JG: There would never be any kind of tell and that came directly from [creator] Joe Weisberg. The one liberty that I took was working with Margo Martindale [Russian agent Claudia]. She's such a mysterious character and she's just assigned to different agents and people... I won't say, but there's definitely something that grounds her that we worked out together.

ESQ: Did you consult actual spies for what they used?

JG: There is a consultant that would inform Joe and the writers, and they would pass that on to us. But I don't know any former spies that I can call up.

ESQ: Where's the best place to source early-'80s vintage wear?

JG: We scour vintage stores every day in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. We also have places across the country and upstate New York where we'll phone in and I'll say, "I'm looking for this type of look." Real retro places. So it's a combination of rentals and shopping in vintage stores. There's a store called Amarcord. There's one on Lafayette and one in Williamsburg. It's owned by a man named Marco. There's also a store called Rue St. Denis, which is in the East Village. They're constantly going to Europe and finding "dead stock," which is clothes that are from the actual time but have never been worn. They still have the tags on them and have been sitting in some warehouse for years. That's the holy grail for us. It doesn't look shabby, it looks like it was just purchased. We couldn't do the show without them.

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