How Too Much Reimagines Rom-Com Style, One Ruffled Dress at a Time
Costume designer Arielle Cooper-Lethem talks dressing Meg Stalter’s lovestruck heroine in lace, nightgowns, and vintage coats for Lena Dunham’s London-set series.
Warning: Spoilers for all 10 episodes of Too Much below.
Lena Dunham’s London-set series Too Much, starring the irresistible Meg Stalter as irrepressible New York City-transplant Jessica, subverts—and celebrates—the starry-eyed rom-com ideal. Similarly, Jessica’s exuberant and very American wardrobe, by costume designer (and former W intern) Arielle Cooper-Lethem, surprises as much as it honors the genre, too.
First, the plot: confronting devastating heartbreak and professional stagnation, aspiring director Jessica lands in London to help produce a big-budget Christmas commercial, starring Rita Ora as Santa. If your Bridget Jones Diary and Love, Actually senses are tingling, you’re spot on. In addition to the setting, we soon learn Stalter’s Jessica, who describes her astrological sign as “Wuthering Heights [sun], Prime Suspect rising,” mainlines British rom-coms, Jane Austen adaptations, and BritBox offerings—an obsession also expressed through her affinity for delicate, white Victorian-y nightgowns and Romantic-era ruffles.
“We're seeing this fantasy from Jessica’s perspective,” Cooper-Lethem tells W. “Such a part of her charm is this endless optimism and fantasy. Maybe you could even call it ‘stupidity’ at times. ” Below, Cooper-Lethem breaks down Jessica’s most daring looks from the season, now streaming on Netflix:
An American in London
As a subtle nod to Renee Zellweger’s beloved producer in Bridget Jones Diary, Jessica at one point dons—and then discards—a set of bunny ears. But Cooper-Lethem avoided overt pop culture references overall, keeping Jessica’s style unpredictable to convey her charisma, which immediately captures the attention of sweet, broody musician Felix (Will Sharpe).
“She's so excited about the world, so curious, so referential, which is what Felix sees and loves in her,” says Cooper-Lethem. “I like this idea that we are surprised when we see her each time. Because that is her sense of self.”
On her first night in London, Jessica, reeling that “estate” holds distinctly opposite meanings in the Stateside and the U.K., flees her modest rented Hackney flat for a grimy pub, where Felix is singing with his emo-indie band. She’s ready for cross-Atlantic exploration and adventures in a white maxi shirt dress, with sheer lace-crochet skirting and a jaunty sailor tie, by London-born and Tokyo-based Foundry Mews.
Meg Stalter (Jessica) and Will Sharpe (Felix) in Too Much
As her relationship with Felix quickly develops, an apprehensive Jessica remains wary of “red flags,” much to Felix’s polite bafflement. The duo also exchanges regular banter, exemplifying the cultural (and pop-cultural) divide between Americans and the English. Like, Jaffa Cakes are actually cookies, and Yanks talk endlessly, and vociferously, about their feelings, while Brits famously keep calm and carry on.
In the production notes, Stalter describes her character as “super sensitive and emotional” and “a loud American, funny, sweet, hot, beautiful, perfect, and also really, really not perfect.”
Jessica’s bold pink and blue palette, confident silhouettes, and unapologetically fun textures and embellishments also telegraph which passport she holds. “It was important to Lena and me that Jessica felt really separate and stood out from this gray, drab London world,” says Cooper-Lethem. “London is a very rich world, but it's also much more hardened, and she's like this little beacon of light.”
As she dresses for Felix’s performance at the “Hackney Donkey Fest,” going down at the local pig farm, Jessica has Coachella on her vision board. Glowing in a shaggy white coat by ’70s-inspired brand Hippie Shake, a floral-patterned cardigan, and a ruffled minidress with 18th-century-referential Wedgewood blue prints, she meets Felix’s group of friends, blasé in dark layers and functional parkas.
“She was putting on her rain boots and having her Glastonbury moment. She shows up and all these Brits are just like, ‘Yeah, we're in Hackney and it's just another day,” says Cooper-Lethem. “That was a good moment for American fantasy versus British truth.”
Another city-specific difference: Felix wears the same ’90s-vintage black leather coat throughout the season. “Jessica has like 20,000 coats, which is very, ‘I'm a New York girlie. I spend months with my coats, as my identity.’ Part of her story is too many coats, too many shoes,” says Cooper-Lethem, who is also a Londoner by way of the Big Apple.
Jessica Gets Her Groove Back
In an episode five flashback to years earlier, we see that Jessica had worn her sailor dress from the first episode dress once before, giving her gaslighting then-boyfriend Zev (Michael Zegen) another excuse to break down her spirit and natural confidence. “I swear you dress as a ‘fuck you’ to people sometimes, Jess,” he tells her in the infuriating scene. “It's like you want to make them feel like idiots for looking at you,” he spews, as a dejected Jessica heartbreakingly wilts.
“It’s exactly what every girl who loves fashion understands—something that's beautiful, and all your girlies are, ‘It's so great,’ and then a dude is like, ‘What the fuck are you wearing?’ It's this ultimate befuddlement,” says Cooper-Lethem, about the dress that frames Jessica’s journey back to self-assurance. “That's a really sweet moment in the premiere, that shows Jess evolves into someone who is proud to be wearing that dress.”
Jessica’s pivotal meet-cute dress also draws a direct connection to her suitcase full of ethereal, lace-trimmed “pioneer nightgowns,” as she refers to them. (“If I was a superhero, this would be my costume: ‘Pioneer Woman!’” she tells Felix.)
“The reason we fall in love with her is because she's so open to every part of the world, her collection of nightgowns being [an expression of that],” says Cooper-Lethem, who sourced mostly vintage pieces from the 1950s and 1960s. “The bottom line with her has to be this romantic concept of self.”
Two Weddings (and No Funerals)
Jessica does repeat her white Hippie Shake coat to attend the wedding of Felix’s former classmate on what Americans would refer to as an “estate.” She pairs the playful layer over an eye-catching metallic-blue minidress. Cooper-Lethem custom-designed the confection, with flouncy ruffles and a sharp bow at the back of the halter neckline, for the Four Weddings and a Funeral-esque sequence, featuring Felix running into a series of exes.
“Are you sure my outfit's OK?” Jessica tentatively asks him, as they walk up an interminable path framed by horses trotting about expansive grounds, like a scene out of Bridgerton.
“[Her dress] was kind of Josie Grossie in Never Been Kissed,” says Cooper-Lethem, referencing a classic American fish-out-of-water rom-com. “It was really important [to show that] she just really didn't get the brief of ‘posh English wedding,’ and would be easily spotted from anywhere.”
Jessica also pulls from her stellar coat arsenal to embody another 1990s love story with an endearingly awkward Hugh Grant pursuing an unattainable American. “I’m Julia Roberts bitch!” Jessica exclaims as she enthusiastically poses for Instagram content on the way to a team dinner at her boss Jonno’s (Richard E. Grant) home.
“She's living her Notting Hill fantasy,” says Cooper-Lethem. Jessica’s vibrant pop-art floral-printed PVC trench coat by Spanish label CeliaB brings ’60s Carnaby Street and Mary Quant to mind. The lively jacket coordinates with a backdrop similar to that movie’s iconic blue door, but doesn’t quite mesh with Jonno’s wife, Diane (Naomi Watts), in streamlined black and white.
“How can I make Jessica idiosyncratic? She's living her glam dream, but she's still not quite able to blend in,” continues Cooper-Lethem. “Like, she doesn't know how to be quiet.”
As she expects from her comfort on-screen fare (and like Dunham’s real life), Jessica ultimately claims her rom-com-meets-period romance happy ending. She maintains her strong, buoyant, and unconventional sense of style—and propensity to surprise—throughout. After Felix proposes in an also-unorthodox setting, Jessica says “I do” in a meaningful vintage t-shirt and her heartfelt signatures: a sassy oversized bow-veil and a ruffled tulle mini-skirt by Chicago-based Veronica Sheaffer, Stalter’s friend.
“Jessica grew up and Marie Kondo-ed her life. She loves everything, but she's decided what brings her joy, and she's just filling her life with it,” says Cooper-Lethem. “She's not asking anyone to give it to her. She's taking it.”
